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Coming from Soviet Union yes it's very destructive that Socialist Realism was the officially state-sponsored art movement. But how is that different from what

Coming from Soviet Union yes it's very destructive that Socialist Realism was the officially state-sponsored art movement. But how is that different from what the CIA is doing here. If they really wanted to be a patron of the arts and freedom of expression then why this focus on a single art movement.

AnimalMuppet 11y ago
I see your point. But in the US, if the CIA didn't sponsor you, you could still paint whatever you wanted...
- mladenkovacevic 11y ago
  Although that's mostly true (even though I'm certain there is a history of persecuted artists/writers/activists in the US), what does that have to do with the original article? Nobody is contesting that United States was not a more free society than the Soviet Union. The implication of art as a tool for propaganda doesn't go away simply because there were other active artists who weren't funded by the CIA.
  - AnimalMuppet 11y ago
    Ah, I see your point now. Quite right.
beat 11y ago
Because the people in charge of the program at the CIA were fans of abstract expressionism. To put it another way, they were using tax dollars in a very weird way to subsidize the kind of art they liked.
- mladenkovacevic 11y ago
  It seems highly unlikely that this decision was made based on personal artistic preferences of the CIA employees in charge of this program. Like when the question came up "Hey which art movement are we going to prop up with millions of dollars?" some head honcho said "I like abstract expressionism.. make it so". To put it another way, do you believe any decision at the CIA involving millions of dollars is not made without hordes of analysts poring over every available action and every possible outcome.
  - beat 11y ago
    They were thinking that abstract expressionism best represented the cultural values that made the West superior to the communist world - the pure freedom of thought and imagination required to produce abstract expressionism, and a culture that could reward (or choose to not reward) its creators, without some government censor getting involved to decide what is and is not valuable and good. So it was an aesthetic love, but also a cultural love. I totally grok where they're coming from. If you don't love something, you're not going to hold it up as a model of what makes your culture superior. I love abstract expressionism and find megachurches creepy and weird, so I would hold up abstract expressionism as a fine example of what makes America great. Someone who loves megachurches and hates abstract expressionism would do the opposite. (By way of measure, my favorite painting ever is Jackson Pollack's "Mural", which I got to admire up close a lot when I was at the University of Iowa) So yes, those CIA directors who made that decision really, truly loved abstract expressionism. They also found it the perfect antidote to the soul-deadening rigidity of Socialist Realism. They felt socialist realism was the result of a dying culture.

AnimalMuppet 11y ago

I see your point. But in the US, if the CIA didn't sponsor you, you could still paint whatever you wanted...

mladenkovacevic 11y ago
Although that's mostly true (even though I'm certain there is a history of persecuted artists/writers/activists in the US), what does that have to do with the original article? Nobody is contesting that United States was not a more free society than the Soviet Union. The implication of art as a tool for propaganda doesn't go away simply because there were other active artists who weren't funded by the CIA.
- AnimalMuppet 11y ago
  Ah, I see your point now. Quite right.

beat 11y ago

Because the people in charge of the program at the CIA were fans of abstract expressionism. To put it another way, they were using tax dollars in a very weird way to subsidize the kind of art they liked.

mladenkovacevic 11y ago
It seems highly unlikely that this decision was made based on personal artistic preferences of the CIA employees in charge of this program. Like when the question came up "Hey which art movement are we going to prop up with millions of dollars?" some head honcho said "I like abstract expressionism.. make it so". To put it another way, do you believe any decision at the CIA involving millions of dollars is not made without hordes of analysts poring over every available action and every possible outcome.
- beat 11y ago
  They were thinking that abstract expressionism best represented the cultural values that made the West superior to the communist world - the pure freedom of thought and imagination required to produce abstract expressionism, and a culture that could reward (or choose to not reward) its creators, without some government censor getting involved to decide what is and is not valuable and good. So it was an aesthetic love, but also a cultural love. I totally grok where they're coming from. If you don't love something, you're not going to hold it up as a model of what makes your culture superior. I love abstract expressionism and find megachurches creepy and weird, so I would hold up abstract expressionism as a fine example of what makes America great. Someone who loves megachurches and hates abstract expressionism would do the opposite. (By way of measure, my favorite painting ever is Jackson Pollack's "Mural", which I got to admire up close a lot when I was at the University of Iowa) So yes, those CIA directors who made that decision really, truly loved abstract expressionism. They also found it the perfect antidote to the soul-deadening rigidity of Socialist Realism. They felt socialist realism was the result of a dying culture.