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.
Franz Erhard Walther (b. 1939) was born in Fulda, Germany. He studied at the School of Arts and Crafts in Offenbach, the Städel Art Institute in Frankfurt, and the Academy of Fine Arts in Düsseldorf. At the latter, he was one of Karl Otto Götz’s students, along with Sigmar Polke and Gerhard Richter. Since the early 1960s, his work has been fundamentally inspired by the concepts of action, body, language, time, and space. More interested in the process than the finished product, Walther was among the artists who, since then, has expanded his research beyond the object to address experience. Even when he presents drawings, photographs, fabrics, installations, and videos, the viewer’s involvement—both physical and mental—is the key element that makes sense of his pieces.
Walther showed his work at many editions of documenta in Kassel (1972, 1977, 1982, and 1987), and took part in historic group exhibitions such as Live in Your Head: When Attitudes Become Form, curated by Harald Szeeman at the Kunsthalle in Bern, Switzerland, in 1969, and Spaces at MoMA (1969–70). In 1977 his work was shown at the XIV São Paulo Biennial, the same event where the Grupo de los Trece represented the CAYC and was awarded the Grande Prêmio Itamaraty by the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Relations (GT-820; doc. no. 1477668). Walther was there representing what was then the Federal Republic of Germany as part of the submission curated by Götz Adriani (b. 1940), and presented a set of sculptures, photographs, and drawings. (Cf. Catálogo XIV Bienal de São Paulo, 1977.) During the São Paulo Biennial (which ran from October 1 to December 18), Walther’s work was also on display at the CAYC on the same day as an exhibition by the Spanish artist Ricardo Cristóbal (1943–2017) (GT-804; doc. no. 1477545), who also took part in the São Paulo event.