Colectivo Acciones de Arte (CADA) is a key reference for Latin American artistic and political practices in the late 20th century. Formed in Santiago, CADA carried out eight actions in public spaces and the media between 1979 and 1985, confronting the widespread violence, hunger, and repression in Chile during that period. Their interventions sought to expand social participation and reimagine the city as a territory to be occupied, affirming art as a means of radical democratic experimentation.

Composed of visual artists Lotty Rosenfeld (1943–2020) and Juan Castillo (1952–2025), writer Diamela Eltit, poet Raúl Zurita, and sociologist Fernando Balcells, the collective emerged six years after the military coup in Chile that, in 1973, overthrew the government of Salvador Allende (1908–1973) and established the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1915–2006), one of the most violent in Latin America.

CADA’s interventions included the free distribution of milk in a poor region of Santiago, dropping leaflets from planes flying over the city, poetic inserts in magazines, in addition to large-scale actions, such as NO+ [No More]. Conceived to mark the tenth anniversary of the military coup in 1983, NO+ is an open statement that, to this day, is appropriated by citizens and social movements to express their demands: NO+ violencia [No More Violence], NO+ dictadura [No More Dictatorship], NO+ tortura [No More Torture], among many others.

This is the first comprehensive exhibition about CADA, bringing together 177 photographs, drawings, videos, and documents from their archives. The exhibition invites to reflect on the transformative role of art in dictatorial contexts, as well as its capacity to mobilize collective solidarity and imagination.

Colectivo Acciones de Arte: Radical Democracy is curated by André Mesquita, curator, MASP.

The exhibition is part of the year-long cycle dedicated to Latin-American Histories, which also includes solo shows by Carolina Caycedo, Claudia Alarcón & Silät, Damián Ortega, Jesús Soto, La Chola Poblete, Manuel Herreros and Mateo Manaure, Pablo Delano, Rosa Elena Curruchich, Sandra Gamarra Heshiki, Santiago Yahuarcani, and Sol Calero, in addition to the major collective exhibition Latin-American Histories and the Video Room pieces by Clara Ianni, Claudia Martínez Garay, Edgar Calel, Oscar Muñoz, and Regina José Galindo.