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.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 31 2015, @11:44PM
Not real sure how to take this.
They were promoting American values of 'Independence and imagination', but for the wrong reasons.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by mtrycz on Sunday November 01 2015, @12:46AM
TFA is pretty interesting, you should read it all, probalby.
The short story is that russian propaganda was that America was culturally barren. So the CIA got some american art and promoted it both inside the States and all over the world (expecially Europe).
The title of the article is a little bit misleading: it's not that modern art was CIA's "weapon", as in "they invested time and money to develop it". They let the artists free to do their thing, and then promoted their art both to prove that America was culturally florid, and that there was space for artists to express themselves as they wanted; as opposed to irrigimented art in the USSR.
In capitalist America, ads view YOU!
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Whoever on Sunday November 01 2015, @03:35AM
You missed the point that, at that time, McCarthy was doing as much as he could to ensure that America was culturally barren.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mtrycz on Sunday November 01 2015, @10:02AM
Or, you know, it could be both.
In capitalist America, ads view YOU!
(Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Sunday November 01 2015, @07:33PM
Does Ted Cruz remind anyone of McCarthy? I even have accidentally called one the other in conversation. Cruz may have some merits related to business specific views (I'm otherwise not a fan), but... for some reason I see the Tea Party types that follow him as a partial extension of what McCarthy was trying to do, a suppression agenda run amok, complete with excessive patriot flag waving and plenty of the God Bless America types that raise Reagan to divinity status.
If someone can correct the errors of my ways, I'll read any objective reviews (if such things exist) regarding his political leanings, but... that feeling is tough to shake. I get the vibe that whatever I think is "wrong" with the man was also wrong with McCarthy, even if it isn't anti communist stuff being paraded around this cycle.
I also seem to lump Trump into a similar, but not quote the same category -- like Trump can be the mouthpiece for badmouthing others, with a puppet master Cruz in the background. I think Cruz is more "electable" than Trump (whatever that means -- I have no intentions of endorsing either), but I can see the same fan base revolving around them both. They seem to me as two circles in a Venn diagram and I am not sure what the center of gravity is that keeps them together. Perhaps self-righteousness, where one is egotistical and plays the confident fool and the other is egotistical while playing as the trustworthy meek?
Palin was like a Trump, but not as good of one for the role. But Cruz has the folksy element that she had that made her popular, that Trump doesn't have. If Trump wasn't the type to drop out of the race rather than lose (better to be a quitter than a loser, I'd expect), I'd almost bet Trump and Cruz would be running-mates... I do not know how they would manage to restrain each other, though, so I don't see that working due to the egos involved. But I am not known for my successful political scrying in the crystal 8 ball I have, so that's why I ask if anyone had similar vibes.
Well I hope I am not modded into oblivion for offending people that are fans. I am hoping to see what others think about these two. (As far as Republicans go, I am going to guess Rubio gets the nomination for no reasons other than Trump and Carson are little more than entertaining distractions to get the undesirables to bleed money and drop out, and that Jeb has made campaign mistakes and will be unable to catch up.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 01 2015, @11:11AM
And this was the precedence that led us to where we are now: A dozen police dramas per channel with mysterious funding and no viewer-ship.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 31 2015, @11:45PM
controversial arrangement of words.
- This post was _________ by the CIA
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 01 2015, @12:06AM
'artsy' -- A daring piece by A. Coward, who certainly shows a lot of potential in the art world.
Anonymous Coward brings something new to the table in his debut piece 'artsy'. The first thing that one notices is the lack of capitalization on the first letter of 'artsy' and 'controversial', which no doubt is meant to invoke a rebellious feeling. Anonymous Coward doesn't play by the rules! The eye is also drawn to the period that ends the sentence, and, being the only period in the entire piece, it just reinforces the message: "I'm ending this sentence, and there's nothing you're gonna do about it!"
Another thing to notice is the blank space left in the last sentence of the piece, which is styled as if it were an attribution. The artist wants us to 'fill-in-the-blank', as it were, and the wildcard approach of this technique makes this kind of audience interaction very risky; Anonymous Coward manages to pull it off very nicely.
I value this art piece at approx. $1 bajillion US dollaridoos.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday November 02 2015, @08:47PM
Yes yes, but his comment ID, #257035, does not fit in with the rhythm of the piece AT ALL. I think you seriously overrated the work of tovarisch Anonymous Coward.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 01 2015, @12:11AM
The article says the CIA sponsored jazz, opera, and classical musicians. I have to wonder whether they were also behind rock-and-roll "music", the reason the world hates America.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 01 2015, @04:38AM
No, rock and roll began with black people, and the Yale- and Harvard-educated elite of the CIA had nothing to do with black people.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Sunday November 01 2015, @01:26PM
Rock and roll was a combination of multiple genres of music. It wasn't a black invention. Early on it was relatively common for a song to be charted for country, rock and blues in the same week from the same album. You can't ascribe it to one racial group or another without overlooking essential contributions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 02 2015, @12:07AM
I've been taken seriously yet again! I wonder whether this was the same AC who had posted, two minutes earlier, about Poe's Law.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 01 2015, @12:13AM
Is there ANYTHING else you would like to tell us CIA?
Analysis of Variance and the "Second Discipline" of Scientific Psychology: A Historical Account. Anthony J. Rucci and Ryan D. Tweney. Psychological Bulletin 1980. Vol. 87, No. 1, 166-184
http://doi.apa.org/journals/bul/87/1/166.pdf [apa.org]
(Score: 1) by Francis on Sunday November 01 2015, @12:44AM
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
It is not so implausible. Bayesian stats were supposedly suppressed after WWIII:
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
Sorry, WWII obviously.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Sunday November 01 2015, @12:49AM
Is there ANYTHING else you would like to tell us CIA?
There is apparently something YOU would like to tell us, but I can't figure out what it is because you're being needlessly cryptic.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 01 2015, @01:00AM
Illegitimate statistical techniques may also have been part of some cold war propaganda. Specifically the immaculate conception of NHST (null hypothesis significance testing) by anonymously combining Neyman-Pearson hypothesis testing and Fisher's significance testing. Why exactly did this get accepted and adopted so easily? This has always bugged me.
(Score: 2, Funny) by deadstick on Sunday November 01 2015, @01:00AM
...is a Navy SEAL.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 01 2015, @01:20AM
But did he graduate top of his class? Is he even trained in gorilla warfare?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Gaaark on Sunday November 01 2015, @01:27AM
Or even that guerilla warfare thing...
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 3, Informative) by gringer on Sunday November 01 2015, @02:18AM
Banksy, Gorilla warfare (see first image):
http://weburbanist.com/2008/06/03/the-history-of-guerrilla-marketing/ [weburbanist.com]
Ask me about Sequencing DNA in front of Linus Torvalds [youtube.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by eravnrekaree on Sunday November 01 2015, @04:13AM
Modern art and everything modern is damaging to the sense of beauty and destroys the sense of discernment and taste. Its all relativism , part of a complex of mentalities which is linked to a general moral decline. Good is bad, up is down and any old paint randomly spilled on a canvas is art. Modern art was a communist plot to undermine the US by attacking the culture of the country from within with this garbage, part of an overall attack on the publics mind and morals. This has only accelerated and worsened as time goes on, leaving a country within which there is little or nothing to admire, a media that is filled with degenerate behaviour, broken families and so on, and absolutely atrocious music. Ergo, Katy Perry. It may seem to be inconsequential but small subtle things can have a massive impact on the mainstream culture. The signs of this are all around us. Skyrocketing divorce rates, Increasing drug use, fatherless children, tattoos and body mutilations galor,the USA is a country really with no culture any more to speak of. Yes, modernism is a part of this vast complex of degeneration to weaken and demoralize the country from within.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 01 2015, @04:36AM
. . . Because there really are people fucked up enough to believe all that.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Francis on Sunday November 01 2015, @01:34PM
Except that modern art isn't popular art. Katy Perry is extremely popular in large part because most people get her songs. Few people get Pollock's work. And you can't reprint Rothko and still have something worth looking at. The prints are never acceptable. But a Kincaid print is popular because you don't have to know anything to like it and they're easily reproduced.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 01 2015, @10:34PM
Katy Perry is extremely popular in large part because most people get Max Martin's [wikipedia.org] songs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 02 2015, @05:28PM
Katy Perry is extremely popular in large part...
...because of her large parts.
(Score: 2) by tadas on Sunday November 01 2015, @06:58PM
Well done. You now qualify as the cranky uncle at Soylent's Thanksgiving dinner.
(Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Sunday November 01 2015, @07:13PM
Whenever I hear the word Modern I think of "hideous windows interface".
Thank you for describing it as it truly is -- a communist plot to take over America! Except I think it's working even though so many people could not identify a socialist/communist plot if it hit them with a generous benefits package and workplace protections.
Now I equal Modern with taking away my privacy, saying that sharing is profitable, my security weakness is their strength, and that as a consumer I am the product.
It is of small comfort to know that I am at least not alone in thinking this; there is historical precedent in just how negative the connotations are to the term. And when does something cease to be modern? Modern is always the present. I guess we've always been at war with Eurasia.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 01 2015, @08:22PM
The modern art in question did have its roots in russia. It took several decades to escape from tsarist russia, and reach western europe, and then a few more to reach the US. If the CIA thought it could make the US appear to be cutting edge by being 50 years behind the curve, then that shows how stupid the CIA are. They only got anywhere by being the 800 pound gorillas.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 01 2015, @11:20PM
One may read about Wassily Kandinsky, an early abstractionist, and "the difficulties he suffered in revolutionary Russia" in http://www.tate.org.uk/download/file/fid/7403 [tate.org.uk] . There was a schism between him and the constructivists [wikipedia.org], and he fled the USSR. Another account of what happened to him is at http://www.wassilykandinsky.net/ [wassilykandinsky.net] which says that his paintings were removed from Soviet museums.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 01 2015, @05:11AM
It shows the CIA has not just been massively damaging the world politically but in art as well.
I think the USA and the world would be better off if the entire CIA was shutdown. At best they serve themselves, not even the USA.
(Score: 3, Touché) by snufu on Sunday November 01 2015, @06:18AM
Not war.
(Score: 2) by Rich on Sunday November 01 2015, @03:42PM
I wonder if either of these bands has ..um.. generous backers.
As we can read on the Wiki, "[Chthonic] was covered by the US mainstream media, including ABC television, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and others". That's quite some audience for a black metal band. The last time I remember such, it was just Penthouse proclaiming Dimmu Borgir as proper voice of Satan (er, well...).
So maybe the red chinese set up Tengger Cavalry as counterpole? (If they did, they did a good job, btw. "Cavalry in Thousands" and "Summon the Warrior" are marvellous!)
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Sunday November 01 2015, @05:55PM
As we can read on the Wiki, "[Chthonic] was covered by the US mainstream media, including ABC television, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and others". That's quite some audience for a black metal band.
If Chthonic got any mainstream coverage it was likely aimed at Doris Yeh, who does not fit the stereotypical profile of a black metal "artist".
(Score: 2) by Rich on Sunday November 01 2015, @10:43PM
The Wiki also says the reporting was done on some protest for the UN recognition of China. It certainly helps that Yeh makes such a nice impression in the picture that has to go with these articles. Which - if the reporting was supposed to be music-focused - doesn't do her much justice, because she plays really well.
Such a wide media coverage would never be done for "pretty asian girl plays heavy bass" alone. Or we'd have (much deserved) articles on Ritsuko Taneda of Shonen Knife, too :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 02 2015, @07:53PM
Degenerate art, used to degenerate American culture.