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. The exhibitions shone a light on these exchanges, in which overviews of trends or individual artists provided an introduction to the innovations of international contemporary art and made Argentine and Latin American artists better known on the global scene.
In 1974 the CAYC began focusing a great deal of its attention on this project, promoting a variety of initiatives in a contemporary circuit of new cultural spaces and centers that were emerging in Europe at the time. The exhibition Arte de Sistemas en Latinoamérica toured various European cities from 1974 to 1976, showing a selection of recent regional works that reflected the concept of “arte de sistemas.”
This newsletter includes a copy of a work by Álvaro Barrios (b. 1945), which was shown at Latinoamérica 74 (1974). Barrios was a key figure in Colombian Conceptual art circles. In 1973 he started producing his “Grabados populares” series, publishing his works in large quantities for local newspapers instead of producing the traditional limited editions.
For many of its exhibition catalogues, the center distributed a sheet with a set grid where artists could sign up. With this method the CAYC could reproduce each artist’s work across several supports and formats, including newsletters and publications that were independent of the CAYC, such as Héxagono 71, the magazine published by Edgardo Antonio Vigo. This led to a greater circulation of images on a broader scale through the CAYC’s campaigns to promote its various initiatives in other parts of the world. Something similar was happening with the heliograph prints produced at several of the center’s exhibitions (GT-133 [doc. no. 1476312]).
