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 a key role in this process. The exhibitions shone a light on these exchanges, in which overviews of trends or individual artists introduced the innovations of international contemporary art and made Argentine and Latin American artists better known on the global scene.
In line with the interdisciplinary action the center championed from its inception, the CAYC also encouraged various preexistent expressions of Argentinean art from the 1960s, such as “art in the street,” presented as part of its poetics. CAYC al aire libre was a string of exhibitions that literally took art to the street. People got involved in the works, interacting with them and creating their own expressions. The first of those exhibitions was Escultura, follaje y ruidos at the Plaza Rubén Darío, from November 7–30, 1970, which showed the works of forty-six local artists and fourteen foreigners. As part of the exhibition there were activities on weekends, such as the Movimiento Música Más, a group that was started in mid-1969 by Roque De Pedro, Norberto Chavarri, and Guillermo Gregorio, who were members of the Centro Latinoamericano de Altos Estudios Musicales del Instituto Torcuato Di Tella (CLAEM). The group had, from the very beginning, aimed for radical experimentation under the creative influence of John Cage, the Fluxus group, and Arte Povera.
Working with actors, dancers, and musicians—such as Ramiro Larrain, Graciela Granata, Pablo Zukerfeld, Adrián Barcesat, and Tipi Jaureguiberry—the center developed a varied program of concerts and musical actions performed in urban spaces. City buses, plazas, and the Teatro Colón itself were used as scenes for their productions in which they suggest that everyday sounds should be perceived as a kind of music.
