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.
This newsletter invites readers to attend the talk given by Luis Pazos (1940–2023), a member of the Grupo de Experiencias Estéticas, about his involvement in the VII Paris Biennial. This biennial, founded in 1957, was devoted to examples of “young art.” As distinct from previous versions that were presented at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, the 1971 edition took place at the Parc Floral (Bois de Vincennes). The works sent from Argentina—selected by Samuel Paz, Rafael Squirru, and Fermín Fèvre (who was also a member of the jury at the biennial)—were by Pazos, Pérez Celis, Rogelio Polesello, and Nicolás García Uriburu.
Estilo de vida argentino —the work presented by the Grupo de Experiencias Estéticas (a group that was created in 1970 by Pazos and included Luján Gutiérrez and Héctor Puppo)—consisted of an installation and a performance by Pazos that reviewed the customs, clothing, games, dances, music, and superstitions that were part of Argentine folklore—expressed according to the stereotypical views of the traveling painters who came to Argentina in the nineteenth century. The CAYC published Experiencias and Imágenes, the books that were part of the group’s presentation at the Paris Biennial, since the Argentine delegation did not have a catalogue. The first book included some written accounts of the group’s actions; the second documented those actions in photographs.
The installation-performance presented at the biennal was the final work produced by the Grupo de Experiencias Estéticas. Later that year the Grupo de los Trece was formed; this was a group of CAYC artists that originally included Pazos, Jacques Bedel, Luis (Fernando) Benedit, Gregorio Dujovny, Carlos Ginzburg, Jorge González Mir, Víctor Grippo, Vicente Marotta, Alberto Pellegrino, Alfredo Portillos, Juan Carlos Romero, Julio Teich, and Glusberg; Horacio Zabala and Clorindo Testa joined the group later.
