Clark was uncertain if what she did was art, or signal to her own pathology. It was both. She was a true original. A diver’s breathing tube, mirrored goggles to be worn by two people, weird balaclava-like masks with pan-scourer eye-hole, rubber gloves to be used to manipulate small objects, whole body-suits with pregnancy-pouches and umbilical tubing – her work is meant to heighten and destabilise the sense we have of our own bodies. We might feel self-conscious wearing this stuff, or playing her games, but their intention was actually cathartic. Her smaller works may have been entertaining, but they also carried within them a similar kind of threat as Giacometti’s “disagreeable objects”. Why there has never been a proper retrospective in the UK of Clark’s work is beyond me.
For all its flaws, this is a timely exhibition. Whatever else it was or wasn’t, Tropicália was an engine of creativity. It had spirit. It was sensual and intelligent, for all the embarrassments of the period. Sitting watching early concert footage of Gil and Caetano, or excerpts from their short-lived TV series, one gets an impression of a less media- and market-driven age, before culture became an industry. An errant art meant something in the late-1960s. Nowadays there’s only the market, and dictatorships by different names.
more from The Guardian here.