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. 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.
In September 1973 the CAYC issued an invitation (GT- 271; doc. no. 1478196) to artists and other actors in the international art world to submit their proposals for Berlin, Taller de arte experimental 1974 (Berlin Workshop for Experimental Art 1974). The suggestions received were considered at the International Symposium that took place in Berlin in November and December of the previous year. Twenty-five prominent figures in the field of international contemporary art took part in the event, including Joseph Beuys, René Block, Marcel Broodthaers, Daniel Buren, James Lee Byars, Richard Hamilton, the critics Ichiro Haryu, Achille Bonito Oliva, and Germano Celant, and Glusberg, who was the sole representative of South American countries. The complete list of attendants and the objectives and logistics proposed for the 1974 event were published in a subsequent newsletter (GT-316; doc. no. 1478839). The participants signed this document condemning the human rights violations perpetrated by the recent military coup in Chile, which became worse during the subsequent seventeen-year dictatorship. First World governments were aware of the CIA’s involvement in the coup. The participants also issued a warning about the danger posed by creeping fascism in Latin America.
The coup d’état by the Chilean Armed Forces on September 11, 1973, deposed the President Elect Salvador Allende and installed a de facto government in the form of a military junta led by General Augusto Pinochet.
