Ever since it was founded, the CAYC (Centro de Arte y Comunicación), helmed by the cultural promoter, artist, and businessman Jorge Glusberg, was intended as an interdisciplinary space where an experimental art movement could flourish. The establishment of collaborative networks connecting local and international artists and critics played a key role in this process. The exhibitions shone a light on these exchanges, in which overviews of trends or individual artists introduced the innovations of international contemporary art and made Argentine and Latin American artists better known on the global scene.
Edgardo Antonio Vigo (1928–1997) was involved in art in various capacities: he made objects, prints, signs, mail art, and visual poetry. He founded two magazines, Diagonal Cero (1961) and Hexágono (1971). In 1969 he organized Expo/Internacional de Novísima Poesía/69, for which he brought in experimental artists from all over the world, presenting everything from visual poetry to electronic media for spoken poetry. This exhibition was, unquestionably, a direct predecessor of the one produced at the CAYC in June 1971. [For more information about Expo Internacional de Proposiciones a realizar. Investigaciones poéticas, see GT-49 (doc. no. 1476289).]
Vigo collaborated with the CAYC on a regular basis from 1968 to 1973. He found the center to be compatible with his own discourse and actions, including a keenness to experiment and ideological convictions regarding the struggle for political and economic liberation of Latin American countries. In 1970 he was one of three artists invited to De la Figuración al Arte de Sistemas (doc. no. 761141), an exhibition that the CAYC presented at the Museo Emilio Caraffa, in Córdoba where, for the first time, at least in Argentina, the category of “arte de sistemas” was mentioned. But when the Grupo de los Trece was formed in 1971, around the central figure of Jorge Glusberg, the director of the CAYC, Vigo did not join. Despite the rejection, he remained involved with the group as an independent person and Vigo and Glusberg enjoyed a relationship based on mutual collaboration. In fact, Vigo’s magazine covers the CAYC’s activities as much as it does his artists work, and the group invites him to their exhibitions and discussion forums.
The newsletter seeks to educate and includes an overview of trends in the fields of spoken and visual poetry (also known as “concrete” poetry) at that time, announcing that, unlike previous trends, these “proposals” are innovative because they encourage the participation of the viewing public. After mentioning the invited artists (now acclaimed)—including Julien Blaine, Vigo’s main link with Europe—the invitation includes all “who work in this field.” [See the English version of this gacetilla: doc. no. 1478227].
