Argentine Experiment: CAyC and CSSR

On April 17, 2025, at 6 pm, we invite you to the opening of the exhibition "Argentine Experiment: CAyC and CSSR", which will be held at the Moravian Gallery in Brno (Husova 18, Brno, Czech Republic)

Curators: Ondřej Chrobák, Pavel Kappel, Jana Písaříková

For more information: https://moravska-galerie.cz/vystavy/vystavni-intervence-ve-stale-expozici-argentinsky-experiment-cayc-a-cssr/

In 1968, artist, theorist and entrepreneur Jorge Glusberg founded the progressive institution Centro de Arte y Comunicación (CAyC) in Buenos Aires. The innovative “geopolitical” aspect of CAyC's activities was the collaboration he undertook not only with entities in the West, but also with Eastern Bloc countries - in particular Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland - as well as with “autonomous” Yugoslavia. Jorge Glusberg had an ambitious plan to create an artistic network that would connect Eastern Europe and the global South, and that would counterbalance the dominant narrative of Western art.
In the Czechoslovak context, he made contact with Professor Pavel Štěpánek, a university graduate and assistant at the National Gallery. Glusberg's other contact was Jiří Valoch, whose work in the field of visual poetry was exhibited at international exhibitions of experimental poetry around the world, including Argentina (La Exposición Internacional de Novísima Poesía/69). In 1971, a number of Czechoslovak artists participated in the Arte de Sistemas exhibition, which included not only local Argentine neo-avant-garde artists, but also a related international art community

The exhibition will present a collection of graphic folios by Argentine authors working within the CAyC, which were exhibited in 1971 by Prof. Štěpánek in the exhibition “Argentine Constructivism” at the Benedikt Rejt Gallery. There will also be a “symbolic” reconstruction of a Czechoslovakian work for the exhibition "Arte de Sistemas" developed from a collection of materials and artworks related to CAyC. The communication between CAyC and individual and local art scenes is one of the most interesting phenomena in the field of international relations of the post-war art world.

The project is co-financed by the governments of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia through Visegrad Grants from the International Visegrad Fund. The fund's mission is to promote the idea of sustainable regional cooperation in Central Europe.