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.
After the long tours taken by Arte de Sistemas en Latinoamérica and the Encuentros Internacionales Abiertos de Video (1974–76) through the new art spaces and cultural centers that emerged in Europe at that time—including the ICC (GT-354; doc. no. 1476507), which presented a selection of recent works produced in the region—the CAYC, working closely with the ICC and the Belgian Embassy in Argentina, organized this first exhibition of works by Belgian artists. In the mid-1970s the ICC was one of the main centers in the Belgian experimental art scene, operating at a contemporary and international level, principally thanks to the initiatives taken by Florent Bex (b. 1937). It became a place where artists and the general public could learn about new forms of art, especially video art, which the ICC sought to encourage and promote by setting up its own production center, called Continental Video.
In addition to organizing exhibitions, Bex produced works under the pseudonym “Hubert Van Es” in which he explored the impact of video techniques on our perception through simple, poetic operations. He exhibited works from the series Projects in Black at Vanguardia belga (GT-612; doc. no. 1477158), as shown in this newsletter. Playing with the contrasts that can be achieved in prints, he used stencil typography to create a social meditation on racial discrimination. That same year, after having presented his work in Buenos Aires, Bex and Glusberg, the director of the CAYC, jointly organized the V Encuentro Internacional Abierto de Video at the ICC.
