The Problem of Official Representation of Art: Radoslav Putar and Yugoslav Exhibitions at the Venice Biennale

From 1952 onward, Croatian art historian Radoslav Putar (1921–1994) continuously contributed to the complex relationship between the Yugoslav art world and great international exhibitions such as the Venice Biennale, at first as an art critic, who reported on the Yugoslav participation at the art manifestation in Venice, and later as a member of the official committee that strategically planned Yugoslav exhibitions politics at the Biennale, as well as the commissioner of the exhibition in the Yugoslav pavilion in 1976. Based on research on the extensive archival documentation in regard to Yugoslav participation in international art exhibitions, this paper reconstructs Putar’s complex, complicated role within the official politics of representing art from Yugoslavia abroad, with particular focus on the case of the Venice Biennale. By analyzing Putar’s often critical standpoints on the question of what official representation of art at international exhibitions should demonstrate and accomplish, the paper will discuss the wider context of Yugoslav representation at the Venice Biennale and its repercussions on the inner dynamics of the art world in the country. Special attention will be given to the controversial case of Putar’s proposal for the exhibition in Yugoslav pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 1976, which was originally rejected by the official Yugoslav art committee but was nevertheless represented in the Yugoslav pavilion that year as a result of political intervention on the part of president Josip Broz Tito.