ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates how American–Yugoslav political relations influenced the role of United States art in Yugoslavia by considering the period from the arrival of American art in 1956 until Robert Rauschenberg's victory at the Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Art in 1963. It assesses how both the US and Yugoslav government instrumentalized art as part of foreign policy, and tease out the shifting Yugoslav reactions to American art. Yugoslavia's ties with the Soviet Union during this period did not, however, prevent Yugoslav critics from commenting on American art. An example of a dismissive and ideologically driven attack on Western "capitalist" art is the review by the influential critic Grgo Gamulin of Peggy Guggenheim's collection exhibited in 1948 in the Greek Pavilion of the 24thVenice Biennale. In 1955, Yugoslavia took an active position vis-à-vis American artists by awarding the Ljubljana Biennial’s Grand Prize to the now little-known American printmaker Armin Landeck.
