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The USA Baut Exhibition in Zurich 1945
from Crossover Culture Max Bill’s and Georges Vantongerloo’s Ties with the United States by Angela Thomas
Four months after the end of WWII, the exhibition USA baut (or “U.S.A. Builds”) opened at Zurich’s primary museum of design on September 8, 1945.18 Bill designed the poster and catalog for the show. The exhibition reflected a turning point in Swiss foreign policy, after the country had found itself blacklisted by the U.S.A. One reason for the blacklist was that Swiss arms manufacturers—most prominently among them Oerlikon-Bührle, headed by Emil Georg Bührle—had, without government hindrance, supplied Nazi Germany with arms throughout the war.19
