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 an important role in this process. The exhibitions shone a light on these exchanges, in which overviews of trends or individual artists provided an introduction to the innovations of international contemporary art and made Argentine and Latin American artists better known on the global scene.
In 1974 the CAYC began focusing a great deal of its attention on this project, promoting a variety of initiatives in exhibitions that traveled around a contemporary circuit of new cultural spaces and centers that were emerging in Europe at the time. The exhibition Arte de Sistemas en Latinoamérica visited several European cities from 1974 to 1976, presenting an overview of the region’s recent works adapted to the original concept of systems art.
As part of the promotional campaign in support of the first edition of this exhibition at the ICC in Antwerp, Belgium, this newsletter includes a copy of the prologue Glusberg wrote for the catalogue. This was something the CAYC often did to increase awareness of its initiatives. The director of the CAYC expands his earlier definition, explaining the distinctive characteristics of what he calls “arte de sistemas.” He suggests that there is a need to redefine “production models” that objectively address the social situation in Latin America, underscoring his concept of a “Latin American” version of systems art in which the production of art is part of a commitment to political action. He returns to the idea that “there is no Latin American art as such, but the region’s individual countries do share a common problem in terms of their revolutionary situation.” Referring to the Theory of Dependency and the countries that make up what was referred to as the Third World, Glusberg proposes an art of liberation in response to an art of domination.
It should be noted that Arte de Sistemas en Latinoamérica established “arte de sistemas” as a movement that positioned the CAYC as the focal point for the exposure and promotion of Latin American Conceptualism.
