ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the British Museum's collections mediated the creation of Rubem Valentim's language of signs, which he only later explicitly related to Afro-Brazilian religions when writing his manifesto from 1970 to 1976. It examines the shift in Valentim's colors from dark and basic to vibrant and dynamic when he moved to Europe, establishing a connection with Pop art and the 1964 Venice Biennale. The phenomenological dimension of Neoconcrete art intended in part to reconcile abstraction with a more humane experience, which subsequently led Neoconcrete artists to develop performance that involved popular culture such as samba and Afro-Brazilian music. The work of Afro-Brazilian visual artist Rubem Valentim has become a paradigm of Concrete art and Afro-Brazilian culture in recent scholarship and exhibitions since the artist's death in 1991. The staff is adorned with intricate geometric motifs such as small circles arranged in registers, which must have stood out for Valentim since he used similar arrangements in his Rome paintings.
