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posted by martyb on Saturday October 31 2015, @11:21PM   Printer-friendly
from the that-explains-a-few-things dept.

For decades in art circles it was either a rumour or a joke, but now it is confirmed as a fact. The Central Intelligence Agency used American modern art - including the works of such artists as Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko - as a weapon in the Cold War. In the manner of a Renaissance prince - except that it acted secretly - the CIA fostered and promoted American Abstract Expressionist painting around the world for more than 20 years.

The connection is improbable. This was a period, in the 1950s and 1960s, when the great majority of Americans disliked or even despised modern art — President Truman summed up the popular view when he said: "If that's art, then I'm a Hottentot." As for the artists themselves, many were ex-communists barely acceptable in the America of the McCarthyite era, and certainly not the sort of people normally likely to receive US government backing.

Why did the CIA support them? Because in the propaganda war with the Soviet Union, this new artistic movement could be held up as proof of the creativity, the intellectual freedom, and the cultural power of the US. Russian art, strapped into the communist ideological straitjacket, could not compete.


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  • (Score: 1) by Francis on Sunday November 01 2015, @12:44AM

    by Francis (5544) on Sunday November 01 2015, @12:44AM (#257055)

    Just that we have to wait another 50 years before they let us know what any of that modern art means.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 01 2015, @12:52AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 01 2015, @12:52AM (#257058)

    It is not so implausible. Bayesian stats were supposedly suppressed after WWIII:

    During World War II, Turning used Bayesian methodology and early computers to decipher Nazi u-boat codes. Historians acknowledge that Turing's work likely helped turn the tide of the war in the Allies' favor. His work and methods, however, were classified by Winston Churchill after the war.

    https://sites.google.com/site/skepticalmedicine//bayesian-methodology [google.com]

    That is all I could find right now, I have seen a better source before. If anyone finds a better source for this info on classifying/destroying the records of Turing's bayesian approach I'd appreciate it.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 01 2015, @12:54AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 01 2015, @12:54AM (#257059)

      Sorry, WWII obviously.