Marko Ristić, “Contemporary Art in the USA: Selected Works from the Museum of Modern Art in New York,” translated from Serbian by Terence McEneny, originally published as “Savremena umetnost u SAD: Izbor iz zbirki Muzeja moderne umetnosti u Njujorku,” in Međunarodna Politika (1956): 14.

Marko Ristic was an important Serbian Surrealist author, known for his collaborations with Andre Breton. As President of the Commission for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries in the 1950s, he played a key role in the organization of the MoMA-organized exhibition Modern Art in the USA, which ran in Belgrade from July 6 to August 6, 1956. In contemporary art, in the many directions and currents it follows from one part of the world to another, there must be interpersonal contact and mutual comprehension in order for art at the individual national level to find its true place and to attain its true meaning. This exhibit is the largest exhibition of modern American art that the US has ever sent to Europe. This exhibition gathers together the most widely differing trends and directions in art, ranging from strict realism to pure abstraction, as can be seen in the pictures hanging behind the author right now.