Eastern, Western or non-aligned modernism?Zgonik, Nadja (Avtor) Non-Aligned Movement (NAM)socialist modernismcultural policycultural exchangeYugoslav artThis article reviews the definitions used to describe the art produced in socialist Yugoslavia in the post-World War II period until the collapse of the state in 1991. For almost two decades after the fall of the Iron Curtain, the consensus to define this art as “Eastern” did not seem problematic. In the last two decades, however, there have been repeated pleas for a more precise definition, one that is said to derive from the specific socio-political order of Yugoslavia in comparison to other communist countries of the Eastern Bloc. The question arises whether and how the non-aligned, anticolonialist and anti-imperialist politics of this multinational and culturally diverse country, which took a leading role in the political movement of the non-aligned countries, manifested itself in its art system. With its policy of non-alignment, Yugoslavia gained political prestige and strengthened economic cooperation, but in the cultural sphere its strategies for self-expression on the international stage were not so clearly defined. With exhibitions of popular and naive art, Yugoslavia emphasised the aspect of young, non-elitist socialist art in a multicultural society created by the people and for the people. At the same time, by gradually turning away from socialist realism and toward Western modernism and abstract art, it presented itself as a non-(Eastern) bloc country that allowed the same artistic freedom as Western democracies. The event that most closely conformed to the concept of non-aligned modernism was the Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts, founded in 1955. Through its inclusive policy, which included countries from the West, the East, and the Global South and allowed both national and individual applications, the Biennial helped consolidate the idea of non-alignment. The second, more concrete result was the promotion of postcolonial collecting, which presented the artistic production of Third World countries in museums of non-European cultures and art galleries rather than in ethnographic museums. It can be noted that the Non-Aligned Movement did not lead to the elaboration of art programmes and manifestos that would have undermined the Western canon of art through the development of a socialist globalism, but it did form a set of fundamental elements20232023-09-12 15:54:06Drugo149986sl