The Grupo de Arte de Vanguardia de Rosario—created by a fusion of three workshops, with artists from different artistic organizations (alumni from Juan Grela, the Grupo Taller, and recent graduates of the Escuela de Bellas Artes de la Universidad)—initiates its public collective actions and position statements at the end of 1965. Two years later, the group acquires more cohesion and is acknowledged as one of the most dynamic experimental art groups in the country. The Ciclo de Arte Experimental [Experimental Practices of Art Series], planned for the early 1968, began in May inside a space that was given to the group by an advertising agency. A short time later, the Instituto Di Tella from Buenos Aires granted it a subsidy that allowed the group to rent a small glass space inside a commercial gallery. Every two weeks, until October 1968, the group would stage an exhibition proposed by one of its members.
The last three presentations of the Ciclo (by Eduardo Favario, Rodolfo Elizalde / EmilioGhilioni, and Graciela Carnevale) were, in some ways, the most radical expression of the group’s anti-formalist and anti-institutional stance.
The happening presented by Ghilioni and Elizalde consisted of a mock street brawl. Like Favario’s intervention, this action took place outside the gallery—in the street. More than just staging an implicit act of violence against the exhibition space, the two artists became violent with each other. They began with verbal abuse and then exchanged blows. They ripped up their own posters; they were chased by their audience, and finally were surrounded by people who spontaneously decided to try to break up the fight.