Two controversial international groups of artists will be hosting their first major UK exhibitions at the Pump House Gallery over the next two months.

Grupo de Artistas de Vangardia from Argentina and Bik Van der Pol from the Netherlands are visually very different, but the ideas, approach and debates explored in their work both encourage the viewer to consider concepts such as power, economic disparity, the State and the social role of art.

Vangardia was formed in the 1960s and created some of the most important examples of political and investigative art in Latin America.

Co-produced with Graciela Carnevale, a member and participant in the group’s projects, this exhibition brings together an archive of photographs, manifestos, reports and documentation of their activities.

An early work by the group, Experimental Art Cycle, was a series of individual exhibitions that challenged the conventional role of the gallery, placing art within a wider context.

On the opening night, Carnevale locked guests in the exhibition space and they only escaped when a passing member of the public smashed the gallery’s glass window.

Its Tucumán Arde exhibition in 1968 became the central alternative outlet of counter government information, exposing the hardship in the region caused by the government's repressive economic programme, before being closed down by the police on its opening day in Buenos Aires after a two-week run in Rosario.

Bik Van der Pol is formed of Liesbeth Bik and Jos van der Pol, who have been working together since 1995, exploring the potential of art to produce and transmit knowledge.

For the first time in the UK they will be exhibiting Loompanics Unlimited, a collection of 140 unpredictable and controversial books published by an American company of the same name.

The books taught readers how to survive without being connected to the electricity board or how to disappear and never be discovered again and were described as manuals your mother and the state would rather you didn’t read.

Among the titles on show will be Money-Making Opportunities, Underground Economy, Fake ID’s, Locks and Locksmithing, Conducting Investigations and How to Sneak into the Movies Without Paying.

The exhibition is designed to evaluate the notions of ultimate democratic freedom alongside ideas of what is socially desirable.

Artistas de Vangardia and Bik Van der Pol, Pump House Gallery, Battersea Park, May 28 to July 19, Thursday to Sunday, 11am to 5pm, free. Call 020 7350 0523 or visit wandsworth.gov.uk/gallery.