The CAYC Files is the first initiative organized as part of a long-term partnership between the International Center for the Arts of the Americas (ICAA) at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the Institute for Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA), New York. Their first collaboration centers on the digitization and annotation of key documents belonging to the Buenos Aires-based Centro de Arte y Comunicación (CAYC) and its founder, the legendary cultural promoter Jorge Glusberg.

Established in 1968, the CAYC functioned as a laboratory for experimental multi-disciplinary artistic practices in Argentina and beyond. During its peak years of activity, the CAYC produced over 900 one or two-page “gacetillas” (newsletters) which Glusberg mailed to hundreds of sympathizers and media outlets across the globe. Aimed at publicizing the CAYC’s activities and initiatives, these documents created a network of figures invested in pursuing new forms of artistic communication and exchange across continents.

Since its founding in 2011, ISLAA has assembled primary-source media from an array of CAYC participants, including over 600 newsletters. The first phase of the CAYC Files will digitize, annotate, and catalogue the complete set of over 900 newsletters. Additional newsletters will be continually added to the CAYC Files collection throughout 2023 and 2024. This ongoing initiative will create the first centralized digital resource for the comprehensive study of the CAYC and its significance for Latin American art in the 1960s and 70s.

The synopses and annotations that accompany each document are produced by a team of Buenos Aires-based researchers supported by ISLAA. The team is led by two of the foremost experts on the CAYC, Maria José Herrera and Mariana Marchesi. The researchers also developed a series of unique editorial categories that serve to organize and facilitate meaningful research into the contents of the newsletters.

The CAYC Files allows users to explore the newsletters within the context of CAYC and its network. The newsletters included in the CAYC Files can also be found in the ICAA’s Documents Project, where researchers can consider the contributions of the newsletters in relation to wider developments in Latin American and Latino art.

Notes on metadata:

The majority of titles in the newsletters were written by the CAYC in lowercase letters; in other, fewer cases there were variables such as titles written in capital letters. At this stage there is no exact information available concerning the editorial reasons for the treatment, style, or typology used for these titles.

The newsletters mainly announce or present events, seminars, exhibitions, festivals, activities, lectures, etc. This provides vital information about the network of participants, including filmmakers, critics, and theorists from different disciplines, as well as a large number of institutions and exhibition centers with which the CAYC was associated and collaborated. The ICAA/ISLAA project has decided to prioritize documenting and describing the names of these individuals and institutions thereby offering a broad overview of the extensive network that the CAYC developed during its lifespan.

Ariel Aisiks, Founder, ISLAA

Arden Decker, PhD, Associate Director, ICAA

Liz Donato, PhD, Research and Publications Senior Specialist, ICAA

Bruno Favaretto + Renato A. Prado, DB & Website, Museu.io, São Paulo

Junior Fernandez, Digital Imaging Associate, ICAA

Lucy Hunter, PhD, Executive Director, ISLAA

Lillian Michel, Digital Experience Specialist, ICAA

Luz Muñoz-Rebolledo, Chief Cataloguer, ICAA

Héctor Olea, Founding Translations and Publications Editor, ICAA

Mari Carmen Ramírez, PhD, Founding Director, ICAA and Wortham Curator of Latin American Art, MFAH

William Schwaller, PhD, ISLAA Writer in Residence (Summer 2021)

Nicasia Solano, Curatorial Fellow (2022-2023), ISLAA

Website design by Museu.io (Bruno Favaretto and Renato Almeida Prado), São Paulo

María José Herrera, Scholar and Researcher, Universidad de Tres de Febrero, Provincia de Buenos Aires

Luciana Laski, Image and Sound Designer, Universidad de Buenos Aires

Martina López, Professor in Combined Arts, Universidad de Buenos Aires

Mariana Marchesi, Artistic Director, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires

Gabriela Naso, Research Assistant, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires

Verónica Tejeiro, Independent Researcher, Buenos Aires

Please direct permission requests to archives@islaa.org.

For general inquiries related to the CAYC Files project, please contact icaa@mfah.org.