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. According to Glusberg, the coordination between theoretical thinking and artistic practice was an essential part of social change.
Architecture and design were always basic components of the CAYC’s interdisciplinary approach. In its early years, the center became affiliated with the Fundación de Investigación Interdisciplinaria (Foundation for Interdisciplinary Research), an organization that welcomed a group of dissident professors from the Facultad de Arquitectura y Ciencias Exactas at the Universidad de Buenos Aires following the forced occupation of universities that took place after the coup d’état in 1966. That earlier affiliation left an indelible mark on various aspects of the CAYC’s operations, such as its approach to many of its initiatives as “projects;” the use of heliographic copies (a technique usually used for copying blueprints) in its exhibitions; the center’s partnering with the industrial sector in exhibitions and contests; and the presence of several artist-architects among the founders of the Grupo de los Trece. Glusberg was affiliated with the industrial sector through his firm, Modulor S.A., which sold light fixtures.
In its early years the center organized a variety of activities with intellectuals that contributed to the circulation of ideas from different disciplines (analytic philosophy, mathematical logic, epistemological problems, psychology, semiotics, and linguistics), which had been excluded from official circles. The center’s interest led to the creation of the Escuela de Altos Estudios (EAE, the School of Advanced Studies) in early 1973. The objectives described in the newsletters that announced the school’s 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 the activities organized by the EAE (some of which were of a technical nature while others were of an interdisciplinary nature), as well as in the work produced by artists associated with the center.
This newsletter announces the creation of a Centro de Documentación de Arte y Arquitectura para América Latina (Center for the Documentation of Art and Architecture in Latin America), to be used as a repository for documents and photographs on any progress made in the various fields of knowledge in Latin America. While it is is not possible to document its continuity, this project was very much in line with the center’s efforts to encourage the international exposure of Latin American art and thinking.
This document was signed by Glusberg (in his capacity as director of the center), and by the journalist and poet Ramiro de Casasbellas (1936–1999), who was named director of the recently created Centro de Documentación.
