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. By means of various institutional strategies, such as art exhibitions and discussion groups focused on Latin American art, the CAYC introduced regional art on the international stage.
Dick Higgins (1938–1998) was an artist, composer, art theorist, poet, publisher, printmaker, and cofounder of the Fluxus international art movement. He coined the word “intermedia” (1965) to describe the interdisciplinary art practice that he had been promoting since the 1960s. In 1964 he founded The Something Else Press (1964–74), a publishing house in the United States that was a pioneer in the publishing of “artists’ books,” a genre that consisted of artworks designed to be published and distributed as books. The firm also published concrete poetry books and other avant-garde works.
In Buenos Aires, he took part in Expo/Internacional de Novísima poesía (1969), the exhibition organized by Edgardo Antonio Vigo, who invited experimental artists from all over the world whose production ranged from visual poetry to electronic media for sound poetry. Higgins was also one of the international artists who took part in Hacia un perfil del arte latinoamericano (1972). A year later Vigo’s magazine Hexágono ´71 (1973) published his article “Aburrimiento y peligro” (Boredom and Danger, vol. 1 no. 9, Something Else Newsletter), followed by a selection of excerpts from Foew&ombwhnw, the book Higgins published in 1969. This book, which looks like a Bible and was printed on bible-style paper, is an experimental paradigm of the format. (M.J. Herrera, “Vigo en (con)texto” [Vigo in (con)text]. In: EV, Bs. As. Fundación Telefónica: 2004.)
This newsletter invites readers to the presentation of The Something Else Newsletter that Higgins published out of the homonymous publishing house (from February 1966 to April 1973). Most of the newsletters consist of theoretical texts written by Higgins and announcements about new and future publications. In “Seen, Heard, and Understood,” Higgins associates the visual arts with literature, referring to the latter as the “art of thinking.” A few days later, in August 1974, Higgins opened a solo exhibition in Buenos Aires, where he showed his works from the series 7-7-73 (1973/1974) (GT-446 [doc. no. 1476519] and GT-447 [doc. no. 1476520].)
