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.
The exhibition Arte de Sistemas en Latinoamérica toured Europe from 1974 to 1976, visiting several cities and showing a selection of recent regional works that reflected the concept of what Glusberg called “arte de sistemas.”
As part of the CAYC’s promotional efforts in support of the second edition of this exhibition, which was presented at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, this newsletter published photographs of the showrooms that included works by Arnoldo Ramírez Amaya (Guatemala), Rubens Gerchman (Brazil), Antonio Trotta (Italy), and the Argentinean artists Edgardo Antonio Vigo, Jaime Davidovich, Ricardo Roux, Jorge González Mir, and Alfredo Portillos. The latter’s instructions concerning his installation can be seen in the lower-right-hand section of the photo, since he did not attend the event in Brussels.
In the prologue to the catalogue for the edition of the exhibition that was presented in Antwerp (see GT-356 [doc. no. 1476508]), Glusberg restates his earlier definitions of what he calls “arte de sistemas” to clarify how his idea was evolving. He suggests that there is a need to identify production models that address the prevailing social situation in Latin America, defending this “Latin American” version in which art reflects a practice that is committed to political action.
It should be noted that the exhibition Arte de Sistemas en Latinoamérica established systems art as a movement that came to define the CAYC, positioning the center as an institutional point of reference in terms of the exposure and promotion of Latin American Conceptual art.
