THE TROPICAL EXILE: FORCED LIFES OF BRAZILIAN ARTISTS ABROAD

Abstract

The work deals with the relationship between art and politics, in the period of the military dictatorship in Brazil. The research purpose is to understand the relationship between authoritarian State and artistic production, as a condition of political pressure. In the period of the Brazilian dictatorship in the 70s and the emergence of artistic-social movements such as Tropicalismo and Cinema Novo, the State acted controlling and censoring agent, and arts movements, in turn, acted as a form of resistance, which resulted, in this case of study, in the exile of singers Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil to London, England, and that constitute the case studies of this dissertation. It also seeks to understand the influences and changes resulting from exile that affected the work of these artists. For that, a historical periodization is established, the concept of exile and its impact on the artistic production of the authors are analyzed. In this sense, it is initially noted that, in the first period, pre-exile, the works of both, considered subversive to the order, promoted an important debate within the social context of the country. After the second period, prison and exile in London, his productions reflected a greater introspection, followed also by an expansion of his experimental freedom, promoted by the new social context inserted. Finally, in the third period, of the return of both artists, the synthesis and consolidation of the contact with the political and cultural influences that such a global city provided, integrates with the return to its roots.