Twenty years after the production of Para no morir de hambre en el arte —the first art action performed by CADA (Colectivo Acciones de Arte, Art Actions Collective)—one of the members of the group, Fernando Balcells, discusses its works, goals, and contexts in his brief text “Hoy como ayer” (Today Like Yesterday). He stresses the ongoing factors in Chile that led to the founding of CADA: the meaning of art, the value of representation, the political insecurity, and others. In his text he reminisces about CADA’s work twenty years after the group was started in a frugal society living under a military dictatorship. Balcells also remembers how important the group and its radical activities were for the art world during the authoritarian period as it coalesced and developed its critical approach to the circumstances of the time.

“Hoy como ayer” (Today Like Yesterday), the text by the sociologist Fernando Balcells, “Cada 20 años” (Every 20 Years) by Diamela Eltit [see the ICAA Digital Archive (doc. no. 740299)], and “Trama urbana y fugas utópicas” (Urban Fabric and Utopian Flights) by Nelly Richard (doc. no. 740281) were all published in the nineteenth issue of Revista Crítica Cultural (November 1999) as part of a reminiscence about the two decades since the CADA group emerged with their first art action: Para no morir de hambre en el arte.  

CADA (Colectivo Acciones de Arte, Art Actions Collective), which was active from 1979 to 1985, was an interdisciplinary group that included the visual artists Lotty Rosenfeld and Juan Castillo, the writer Diamela Eltit, the poet Raúl Zurita, and the sociologist Fernando Balcells. They staged their performances and art actions in public spaces to condemn the conditions imposed by the authoritarian military dictatorship (1973–90). Their demands for greater opportunities for action and creativity always included an underlying criticism of the de facto institutions. Castillo was a member of the group of artists who were dubbed the Escena de Avanzada by the art critic Nelly Richard.

Richard saw the CADA group’s art production as an integral part of the Escena de Avanzada, and wrote many articles and essays about their works and activities. Nelly Richard founded and directed Revista Crítica Cultural, which appeared a total of thirty-six times from 1990 to 2008. This magazine published critical essays and texts that were written in styles that ranged from academic to something that ignored institutional limits.