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.
During the 1970s Glusberg created a network of South American and international institutions that were involved in experimental practices. These institutions shared similar programs to encourage the production and exhibition of Conceptual works in a contemporary circuit formed by new cultural spaces and centers.
Gérald Minkoff (1937–2009) was an important figure in the experimental art scene in Switzerland. In 1973 he joined the Ecart Group, which consisted of an independent space and a publishing house founded in 1969 by radical artists in Geneva. Ecart soon became a focal point for experimental work in Europe, devoted to organizing exhibitions and publishing artists’ books—a meeting place for an international network of artists working in the fields of performance, video art, and mail art. Its program and the projects it encouraged were always in line with the CAYC’s ideas, both in terms of their experimental nature and their goal of creating opportunities for circulation and exchange.
Minkoff and Muriel Olesen (1948–2020) worked together to create projects using photography, film, and video that were full of music, rhythm, and humor. After both artists took part in the Encuentros Internacionales Abiertos de Video (GT S/N, doc. no. to be confirmed, GT-606; 1477317) in Ferrara, Italy, in 1975 and in Antwerp, Belgium, in 1976, the CAYC published newsletters promoting works by Olesen (GT-776; 1477439, GT-779;) and Minkoff (GT-719 and GT-720; 1477377, and GT-780; 1477442) in 1977.
The artistic use of palindromes shows continuity in Minkoff’s work; they appear in his written pieces and his ceramic and marble prints, in neon letters, and embroidered on fabrics and everyday objects. A constant in his work is his use of MizzUnderStanding, which allows him to introduce ambiguity through the idea of misunderstandings.
Beside an image that has been adapted by the artist, the text in the newsletter ironically states: “the miracle of geometry is present in any situation.”