Collectivization, participation and dissidence on the transatlantic axis during the Cold War: Cultural Guerrilla for destabilizing the balance of power in the 1960s

Abstract

This article analyses the role of collectivization and participation and their configuration under the concept of Cultural Guerrilla that implied a socio-political commitment of artists in the 1960s. It discusses how the Cultural Guerrilla was understood by the artists and how it participated in the destabilization of the social (and political) system and in confronting the imperialist policies of the US. It, firstly, focuses on the development processes of a collective and participative action during that decade and its role for confronting the aesthetic model that was fostered by the US within their Cold War cultural politics. Secondly, the text approaches the exchanges of French-based artists and intellectuals with the revolutionary government of Cuba in 1967 during the organization of the Salón de Mayo in Havana, discussing, thirdly, their impact on the artists’ participation during the events of May’68 in Paris.

Keywords

• artistic activism
• may’68
• art and politics
• cuban revolution
• salón de mayo
• salon de la jeune peinture
• julio le parc
• eduardo arroyo