Visionary ... Mask, by Lygia Clark.
Photograph: Martin Argles
Tropicália was the name of the multi-disciplinary music and arts movement that flowered under the repressive military dictatorship in Brazil. At its height during the late 1960s, the movement became a powerful force in the reforging of cultural identity, effecting a synthesis between Brazilian traditions and international modernism. Subtiled "A Revolution in Brazilian Culture", the Barbican Tropicália exhibition is the first exhibition to chart this creative explosion, but what did gallery-goers make of it?
Marlene Ramudo Marco, 28, Valencia:
I thought it was a vibrant exhibition and I really got into it. I walked on the unexpectedly cold sand and the warm straw, which was a strange thing to be doing in the city. The show is about Brazilian culture and the way Brazilians live. It's also about contrasts and experimentation.
David Jones, 40, London:
I found it a little disappointing, but there's a lot of interesting sensory stuff there. The strange fetish gear looks completely contemporary. I'm looking at the desensitisation of the people held in Guantanamo Bay at university, and there are similar ideas going on here. I liked Lygia Clark's stone cushioned in a bag of air: there's something therapeutic about picking it up.
Chris Evangelou, Surrey:
What I picked up from the exhibition was how broad a movement Tropicalia was. Some of the art was bubbling under way before the music. On the music side, you're getting a mix of psychedelic and European rock with Bossa Nova.
Julie Anderson, 44, Muswell Hill:
I'm a big fan of pop art and psychedelia. The show is almost a druggy experience. All the tactile stuff must have been quite radical back then. It makes me think of that magical realism thing South America is so good at. The work twists things and gets you on a level that a lot of art doesn't. It hooks you in a disturbing way.
Edward, Clerkenwell:
The big stuffed hog in a crate and the faces in boxes made me think about dictatorship and repressive regimes.
Jean Watts, 57, London:
I was around in the 1960s and my generation think we were terribly progressive and innovative. It's good to find out what was going on beyond Britain and the US, and to realise that people in other countries were being just as mad and full of ideas as we were. Aesthetically, the neo-concretists' works are just so neat and the show is great fun. It's art with a very democratic impulse. The artists want the audience to participate and that's appealing.
