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. In addition to the exhibitions, a program of different activities exposed attendees to the latest in art and scientific thinking.
During the military dictatorship of General Juan Carlos Onganía (1966–70), the CAYC became a cultural home for the Fundación de Investigación Interdisciplinaria, a space that welcomed a group of dissident professors from the Facultad de Arquitectura y Ciencias Exactas de la Universidad de Buenos Aires after the military takeover of the university in what came to be known as “La Noche de los Bastones Largos” in June 1966. In its early years the center organized a variety of activities with intellectuals that contributed to the circulation of ideas from different disciplines (analytical philosophy, mathematical logic, epistemological problems, psychology, semiotics, and linguistics), which had been excluded from official circles. According to Glusberg, the coordination between theoretical thinking and artistic practice was an essential part of social change.
The center’s interest led to the creation of the Escuela de Altos Estudios (EAE) in early 1973. Though gatherings of this kind had happened before—some of them were associated with the Sociedad Argentina de Análisis Filosófico (SADAF) (GT-141; doc. no. 1478780, GT-141-A; doc. no. 1478781, GT-147; doc. no. 1478783, GT-120; doc. no. 1478803 [logic and the deductive hypothetical method])—the EAE created a formal space that included academics and intellectuals where ideas could be shared. The goals described in the newsletters that announced its creation (GT-201; doc. no. 1478752, GT-201-A; doc. no. 1478753, GT-224; doc. no. 1478771, GT-219; doc. no. 1478755) were apparent in activities organized by the EAE and in the production of artists associated with the center.
This initiative was an expression of the mood of openness of the “Cultural Spring” that flowered during the brief democratic presidency of Héctor J. Cámpora, which lasted forty-nine days in 1973. It was seen as putting an end to a seven-year period of military dictatorships (first under Onganía, then Levingston, and then Lanusse), after Perón had been in exile for eighteen years.
Organization by means of committees, as introduced on this occasion, emulated the existing structure that was used by Argentine political parties during periods of democracy. It should be noted that not all participants mentioned in newsletters were truly organically involved in the operation of the EAE or remained part of the organization over time.
