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.
Ulises Carrión (1941–1989), a key figure in the field of Conceptual art, was a writer, curator, theorist, and visual artist. His work included mail art, performance, video, and artists’ books. He studied language and linguistics in Mexico, France, and England, then settled in Amsterdam in 1972. There he cofounded the In-Out Center (a space for independent artists). He also founded Other Books and So, a hybrid project that included a gallery, library, and publishing house, where he promoted experimental publications that didn’t fit into traditional market categories.
In July 1978 he presented Permanencia voluntaria at the CAYC. This was a multimedia production that consisted of a lecture based on Carrión’s 1975 manifesto El arte nuevo de hacer libros (The New Art of Making Books), three performances associated with language, and the presentation of a selection of his videos.