The Art of Soft Power at Expo 67: Creative America and Cultural Diplomacy in the US Pavilion

At Expo 67 in Montreal, the US government sought to counter negative world opinion by sponsoring a public diplomacy display that emphasized American culture. While US technological achievements were championed in a space exhibit, the bulk of the Creative America exhibition celebrated American popular culture, a break from the typical focus of such displays upon economic and military power. Not only did Creative America celebrate Hollywood, folk art and pop music, it also offered a subtle critique of American mass culture, a particular point of emphasis in the pop art featured in American Painting Now. This embrace of pop art marked a shift in US government cultural diplomacy away from abstract expressionism, an art form supported for its embrace of freedom. In highlighting pop art, American cultural diplomacy emphasized freedom of expression in a different way: the freedom to criticize one’s own society.