Visons of the End of The World in David Bowie and António Variações

• Autor(a) principal: Branco, Luís Carlos S.
• Data de Publicação: 2019
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://doi.org/10.34624/rual.v0i6.3079

I will analyze the connections between the work of David Bowie and the work of Antonio Variações. Intertextuality and intermusicality are very important in the work of Variações. He often referred to Amália Rodrigues as a major influence, but he always refused any comparison with foreign artists. But we must ask if it is possible that someone like him, who has visited New York and lived in London and Amsterdam could have stayed immune to the artistic environment that he has experienced in those important centers of world western pop culture? As a matter of fact, the only foreign artist Variações has ever mentioned was David Bowie. The British singer was a groundbreaker in the queer question: he was one of the first artists to assume his homosexuality and to encourage his public to do the same. The neo-romantic artists of the 1980s followed in their footsteps and in Portugal Variações himself boldly assumed that role. I will begin by tracing Bowie’s course, crossing it with Variações work. Two elements will be anlysed in detail: holism and, closely linked to the emergence of queerness, apocalyptic visions.