22 ms·
Was modern art a CIA psy-op? (2020)
- tpm 3y agoModern Art was not a CIA Psy-Op, because modern art is older than the CIA. Modern art started around the 1870s and was in full swing at the start of the 20th century. The CIA was founded in 1947.
- BurningFrog 3y agoA theory I like is that "modern art" was triggered by photography making a lot of painters unemployed around the 1870s. So some unemployed painters tried their luck painting pictures a camera couldn't make.
- BeFlatXIII 3y agoI wonder what this generation's modern art response to AI art will be.
- pessimizer 3y agoNobody is accusing them of coming up with the styles. They just found the emptiest artistic movements with the least to say and flooded them with money and positive criticism.
- irthomasthomas 3y agoI'm genuinely surprised that the article neglected to mention the intriguing story of Rockefeller Plaza and the artist Diego Rivera. Rockefeller, in his ambition to elevate the visual allure of the lobby in the newly-constructed Rockefeller Center, enlisted Rivera to produce an imposing mural. The outcome was "Man At The Crossroads," an artwork of monumental scale and significance. Rivera's work is a meticulous tapestry, deftly weaving myriad aspects of the social and scientific zeitgeist of his era. Echoes of Communism, an influence in Rivera's other works, can also be discerned here. The centerpiece of the composition features a worker, seemingly the master of the machinery surrounding him. This focal figure is presented beneath a colossal fist clutching an orb, a representation of atomic recombination and cellular division in an ongoing act of biological and chemical genesis. Four propeller-like forms extend from the central figure towards the composition's corners, signifying light arcs emanating from large lenses that anchor the spatial edges. Rivera coined these as "elongated ellipses". They encapsulate cosmological and biological forces, such as erupting suns and cellular structures, symbolizing the revelations afforded by the telescope and the microscope. Interwoven between these arcs are vignettes of contemporary social life. To the left, affluent society women are depicted indulging in cards and cigarettes. In stark contrast, on the right, we find Lenin amidst a diverse assembly of workers. Juxtaposed scenes of militaristic force and a Russian May Day rally laden with red flags encapsulate Rivera's contrasting societal visions – a decadent, jobless society, dispassionately observing escalating conflict, and Lenin ushering in a socialist utopia. Classical statues tower behind the observers at the edges of the scene. The left bears an enraged Jupiter, his hand clutching a thunderbolt, severed by a lightning strike – an embodiment of the frontier of ethical evolution. Conversely, a headless seated Caesar on the right signifies the frontier of material development. These images were Rivera's symbolic defiance against superstition, advocating for the scientific mastery of nature and the overthrow of authoritarianism by the emancipated proletariat. The mural's overt Communist themes caused a stir among certain American observers. When Rivera stood his ground against removing Lenin's depiction, Rockefeller retaliated by having the mural plastered over. Erased. In the subsequent years, Rockefellers skill at erasing art made him a key figure in the CIA's initiative to suppress intellectual discourse within the art world. In pursuit of this endeavor, the agency orchestrated the flooding of galleries with abstract art, featuring indecipherable splashes of paint, thereby drowning out the voices of artists who dared to infuse their creations with thought-provoking messages https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_at_the_Crossroads https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_at_the_Crossroads
- api 3y agoThe government threw money at the arts in the mid-20th-century to show up the USSR and people are reading too much into it. If classicism had been the thing in the middle of the 20th century they would have funded that instead. Is the popularity of reactive programming a Facebook psy-op? They certainly popularized it via React, but does that mean there was some deep agenda inside Facebook to popularize reactive programming to accomplish some mysterious occult goal? Or was it just that Facebook is big, happened to employ some good devs who liked reactive programming, and dumped a lot of money into it? When big companies and governments throw money around they distort the market and whatever happens to be in the right place at the right time to grab that cash tends to get favored. That's usually all there is to it unless you can find concrete evidence that (for example) someone with authority in the CIA wanted to promote that specific type of art to achieve a specific societal outcome.
- gjsman-1000 3y ago> The government threw money at the arts in the mid-20th-century to show up the USSR and people are reading too much into it. If classicism had been the thing in the middle of the 20th century they would have funded that instead. I'm not so sure. Call it a conspiracy theory, but there is at least some evidence that modern art is a fantastic tool for money laundering. Now, this is also true of classical art and patents, but imagine if you are trying to send money with a stupid cover story. Make a piece of modern art in 15 minutes, have other person send $50,000 to "purchase" it...
- api 3y agoAny high priced asset that's easy to move with few questions asked is a great tool for money laundering. One of the largest tools is real estate, which may be one reason you see a lot of unoccupied houses and condos in certain expensive cities. The art doesn't have to be modern to work this way. It just has to be fungible art with an inflated price tag on it. Any style will do. Other popular money laundering vehicles include: "investments" in totally hollow shell companies, fake customers to shell or cutout businesses (like the car wash in Breaking Bad), manipulating penny stocks (you basically run a pump and dump against yourself using dirty money to pump and extracting clean money on the other side), cryptocurrency and related things, other big assets like airplanes and boats, etc.
- ftxbro 3y ago> "Soviet propaganda asserted that the United States was a “culturally barren” capitalist wasteland." but we invented taco tuesday and family guy
- samstave 3y agoAnd then we empowered companies to sue eachother over the phrase "taco Tuesdays" https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/taco-tuesday-trademark-tiff-flares-anew-fast-food-99370476 https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/taco-tuesday-trademark-t...
- ch4s3 3y agoDon't forget Huey Lewis and the News, when Sports came out in '83, I think they really came into their own, commercially and artistically.
- chrisco255 3y agoAnd Back to the Future, arguably the greatest movie/trilogy of all time and a distinctly American epic, which also featured several Huey Lewis and the News songs.
- ch4s3 3y agoI never saw it, I was to busy playing tennis and dining at Dorsia.
- chrisco255 3y agoI never saw American Psycho.
- pessimizer 3y agoYes! On Huey Lewis and the News they seemed a little too willing to cash in on the late seventies/early eighties taste for New Wave, and the album - though it's still a smashing debut - seems a little too stark, too punk.
- mkoubaa 3y agoBoy am I glad that we are saying "was" now about that nonsense
- jimsimmons 3y agoYou think Van Gogh and Picasso are nonsense? Or even Mondrian
- DirectorKrennic 3y agoYes and no. On one hand, my social class and upbringing almost command that I should find beauty in Van Gogh and Picasso's works. I defer to the masters on matters I do not understand, but it's not where my personal taste and love really lie.
- ethanbond 3y agoHave you seen Picassos or (especially) Van Goghs in person?
- toolz 3y agoI have. I do a lot of traveling and inevitably people want to go to art installations and museums and I'm always fine with going. Anways, there's not a lot of legendary art pieces (that are in public places) I haven't seen in person. Not a single one of them really inspire me. I'd go so far as to say I don't really understand how art became such a huge market to begin with. I literally wouldn't pay $100 for anything other than sculptures. I wouldn't put most of the legendary pieces on my wall unless you paid me. edit: it always tickles me the negative reactions I get when people hear my opinion on art. Doesn't seem to matter how I phrase it, it's always offensive to someone that I can't see the undeniable beauty in popular art. Putting time and effort into something is a prerequisite for me to be in awe, but it does not automatically interest me. Many professional athletes put in far more time and effort into their craft to play a decorative game and I similarly don't care about their mastery of their strictly decorative achievements.
- unnouinceput 3y agoWas Modern Art a CIA Psy-Op? No, it's not. No more than other attempts, like assassinating Castro (man, that one is really a laughing stock if you read that one front to back) or their involvement in "war against drugs". Maybe they start it but had absolutely no control where it was going.
- shams93 3y agoAs someone who blew 500k on an MFA I wish they would bring this back lmfao.
- ftxbro 3y agoyour personal information about to get added to the creepy backrooms of algolia https://news.ycombinator.com/highlights https://news.ycombinator.com/highlights
- isoprophlex 3y agoWhat the hell am I looking at?! I never knew this existed! What else don't i know?
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- ftxbro 3y agothe one you put yesterday is probably going there too
- samstave 3y agoPlease expand on this backstory?
- nerpderp82 3y agoI worked with shams93, their medium was Papier-mâché using 100$ bills.
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- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
- rr808 3y agoIf you haven't read about MKUltra its worth a read too. Looks like the CIA helped to make LSD popular in the 60s https://www.npr.org/2019/09/09/758989641/the-cias-secret-quest-for-mind-control-torture-lsd-and-a-poisoner-in-chief https://www.npr.org/2019/09/09/758989641/the-cias-secret-que...
- BashiBazouk 3y agoThat was well covered in Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. At least the "make LSD popular" part.
- adamrezich 3y agostill not sure if it was related but in elementary school in the 90s I was put in a "gifted" program which involved, on at least one occasion, wearing headphones in a dimly-lit room and being tested with Zener cards. I've dug into local records and still to this day don't conclusively know what that was all about.
- saalweachter 3y agoI've always wanted to pull out some Zener cards in the middle of a programming interview. If a candidate is psychic, wouldn't that be good to know?
- meindnoch 3y agoActually... It can be a good trait for a candidate to call out obvious bullshit - for which a Zener-test is the perfect meta-test!
- saalweachter 3y agoIt also gives candidates a good story even if they don't get hired.
- the_sleaze9 3y agoAmateur level. You need to testing for Larges, not Mediums.
- Lammy 3y agoNow do Rock music https://www.amazon.com/Weird-Scenes-Inside-Canyon-Laurel/dp/1909394122 https://www.amazon.com/Weird-Scenes-Inside-Canyon-Laurel/dp/...
- heavyset_go 3y agoThis is one of my favorite rabbit holes to go down, it's nuts.
- debacle 3y agoWhat?
- quakeguy 3y agoThe book the OP links to does make a good case of the same influence being used by the CIA as the OOP link makes with modern art… if that makes sense.
- readyplayernull 3y agoAnd The X-Files was a long ad.
- underlipton 3y agoMakes me look at things like Disco Demolition Night in a new light.
- mikrl 3y agoThat event always seemed so weird to me. I’m not the biggest fan of disco (some of the old and new stuff is danceable) but isn’t blowing up a crate of records similar in spirit to book burning?
- underlipton 3y agoOr, if you consider recorded art - its creator's thoughts and feelings being shuttled into the future - as akin to that creator living on in perpetuity, perhaps it's also similar in spirit to the assassination of a "subversive." Wait a minute.
- seydor 3y agoDo not be fooled by the article's date. It is another psyop
- moffkalast 3y agoIgnore this guy's comment, it's obviously a psyop as well.
- RajT88 3y agoYou're both wrong. I am here for the psyop. Shit. Strike that from the record. How do you delete comments?
- quakeguy 3y agoYou cannot delete anything once on the net, that was a psyop.
- jp42 3y agoI cannot confirm or deny whether this comment is psy-op.
- RajT88 3y agoNo no, that claim was also a psyop. Unless the psyop was itself a psyop? Would they do that to their own people?
- krapp 3y agoIt's psyops all the way down.
- gmiller123456 3y agoYou mean a psypo.
- brudgers 3y agoThe article mentions the Advancing American Art program. You can read more about it here: https://brill.com/downloadpdf/journals/hcm/7/1/article-p971_44.pdf https://brill.com/downloadpdf/journals/hcm/7/1/article-p971_...
- moomoo11 3y agoNothing to see here folks. Just Matrix things.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- thinkingemote 3y agoWe can see what our governments are encouraging towards other countries quite easily and openly today. For example in the UK you can see organisations like the British Council (The United Kingdom's international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities): https://www.britishcouncil.org/arts/news https://www.britishcouncil.org/arts/news and towards China in particular: https://chinanow.britishcouncil.cn/ https://chinanow.britishcouncil.cn/ Some on the left (and right I imagine) say these are an example of neo-colonialist neo-liberalist ideas and that does seem as conspiracyish as this article but if you imagine in 50 years time a politics article looking at the arts right now, then an archived series of these projects from our governments international arts organisations might well be included!
- AdamH12113 3y agoThere's a book on this called The Cultural Cold War[1]. I tried reading it but (embarrassingly) I don't know enough about artistic and literary figures in the mid-20th century to follow along with all the names it drops. Seemed interesting, though. [1] https://thenewpress.com/books/cultural-cold-war https://thenewpress.com/books/cultural-cold-war
- TheOtherHobbes 3y agoAlso https://www.amazon.com/Who-Paid-Piper-Cultural-Cold/dp/1862073279 https://www.amazon.com/Who-Paid-Piper-Cultural-Cold/dp/18620... by the same author. Makes it very clear that both sides were despotic in their own ways. The USSR used brute force and intimidation. The methods used in the US were more subtle and covert, but just as ideologically - as opposed to creatively - directed.
- maybelsyrup 3y ago> but just as ideologically - as opposed to creatively - directed And about as bloody, too.
- diimdeep 3y agoHollywood? Most recent one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_(2023_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_(2023_film)
- exogen 3y agoIf you like this kind of question, I highly recommend the Wind of Change podcast, about whether The Scorpions song of the same name was written by the CIA. Super entertaining! https://crooked.com/podcast-series/wind-of-change/ https://crooked.com/podcast-series/wind-of-change/
- esafak 3y agoIf would be so cool if it is true! Well, is it?
- aethanol 3y agoguess you'll have to listen!
- 082349872349872 3y agoIn Linebarger's book Psychological Warfare, he points out that asking propaganda men (in his defense, they probably were almost all men ca. 1947, and I suspect he may even have referred to specific men, eg Edward Bernays) about their work is highly unlikely to result in an unspun answer. (then again, consider Epimenides: Linebarger is also a propaganda man)
- jasonfarnon 3y agoI feel about this the way I feel about most so called conspiracy theories. I'm certain intelligence agencies are involved something similar to this. It would be really surprising if they didn't avail themselves of this huge means of influence. They spend all day wondering about how to influence. But I'm more skeptical that the conspiracy theorist actually managed to catch the intelligence agency's activity in this particular case.
- tedunangst 3y agoThis is basically every sports fan theory that every game is rigged on the basis of a few point shaving scandals.
- golergka 3y agoOccams razor: a much simpler explanation, not disproved by anything in this article, would be that CIA saw that sincere and powerful american and western art was already capturing hearts and minds for effectively, and decided to empower it, since this process aligned with its goals. And in general, american hegemony roughly aligned with interests of humanity as a whole, because with all it's downfalls and atrocities and ugliness, its still much better than the alternative.
- jayzoos 3y ago[flagged]
- pessimizer 3y agoMore an explanation that requires one to be simple than a simple explanation.
- jayzoos 3y ago> everyone else's imperialism is bad except mine! lmao you flagged me for this?
- golergka 3y agoNo, I didn't, but it's a silly argument. An option doesn't need need to be good in order to be best, just like a number doesn't need to be positive in order to be the maximum of the set.
- underlipton 3y agoSpeaking out of my ass: my understanding was that certain branches of abstract expressionism were so, essentially, but it's difficult to apply the suspicion to ALL of modern/postmodern art, considering that so much of it was developed or influenced by artistic movements outside the temporal and geographic purview of the CIA (particularly pre-WWII European (post)modern art and its influences in Asian and African forms). Also, it wouldn't be the first time influential entities boosted controversial media in a successful bid for a sort of cultural engineering. (I know what you're probably thinking, and no, I'm actually referring to, "Woodrow Wilson screening 'Birth of a Nation' at the White House.") (I'm purposely conflating modern and postmodern art because I imagine that many who see the term "modern art" make that mistake, and because Pollock et al. kind of bridge the two in eschewing representation while still using traditional media.)
- pessimizer 3y agoThis went along with tons of money to left-wing anticommunist/antisoviet writers and scholars (financing a bunch of elite literary journals that no one read, but looked good enough on resumes to get people into the NYRB, Guardian, etc..) If you're on the left, but not a Leninist, don't fall for the flattery of institutions. There are people spending the integrity of naive idealists in order to advance military and strategic goals.
- Der_Einzige 3y agoThe IDF reads the works of Deleueze and Guattari for inspiration on how to do urban warfare. I always laugh when critical theory influenced folks try to claim they're "anti-authoritarian". Nope, if anything is a psyop, it's fashionable nonsense. Fashionable nonsense neuters academics who would be revolutionaries and turns them into academic hipsters.
- PaulHoule 3y agoBack in the days of the John Birch Society people made the same claim except it was the KGB instead.
- JasonFruit 3y agoThey could have been unwittingly cooperating with each other.
- wly_cdgr 3y agoNo
- hkt 3y agoRegardless of what you think of this, there is a related idea worth considering: hegemony. Whether it is organic or confected, the idea that powerful groups within societies create and export ideas to other groups in society in a way that cements their own power or breaks a competing group's.. isn't new, and is fairly clearly the case whether we look at art, or tech, or media ownership.
- dang 3y agoDiscussed (a bit) at the time (of the article): Was Modern Art Really a CIA Psy-Op? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23525366 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23525366 - June 2020 (7 comments) Pretty sure there have been other threads, including on the Peter Matthiessen (Paris Review) connection - anybody want to find them? Edit: there's this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10963429 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10963429 - and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10964477 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10964477 linking to https://www.salon.com/2012/05/27/exclusive_the_paris_review_the_cold_war_and_the_cia/ https://www.salon.com/2012/05/27/exclusive_the_paris_review_.... Edit 2 - found some more: During Cold War, CIA used ‘Doctor Zhivago’ as a tool to undermine Soviet Union - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7991903 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7991903 - July 2014 (30 comments) Abstract Expressionism was (in part) a covert CIA operation - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1891222 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1891222 - Nov 2010 (1 comment) Others?
- justsomehnguy 3y ago^ this guy moderates Did you ever posted how exactly do you find a similar posts despite them having a very different URIs?
- dang 3y agoYup - lots of links here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35668525 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35668525
- selcuka 3y agoHN search is actually very good. You can even use Google for that: https://www.google.com/search?q=cia+%22modern+art%22+site%3Anews.ycombinator.com https://www.google.com/search?q=cia+%22modern+art%22+site%3A...
- xhevahir 3y agoSome people have reported CIA involvement in the Iowa Writers' Workshop, which had a great deal of influence on the direction that literary fiction took in post-WWII America. I'm inclined to believe that such projects were likely the playthings of a few dilettantes in high places--spymasters with subscriptions to Commentary and Partisan Review--rather than a serious attempt at stifling dissent, or discrediting socialism, or cultivating soft power, or whatever. https://www.openculture.com/2018/12/cia-helped-shaped-american-creative-writing-famous-iowa-writers-workshop.html https://www.openculture.com/2018/12/cia-helped-shaped-americ...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ProjectArcturis 3y agoHere are three things that well connected Old Money types like: collecting art, being on the boards of nonprofits, and serving in high-level government positions. Not surprising that a Rockefeller might do all three.
- xtian 3y agoThese are mere personal preferences. Any connection to a broader agenda is a conspiracy theory.
- B1FF_PSUVM 3y agoNowadays there's bitcoin/etc, so art/collectibles as value store are taking it on the nose.
- elif 3y agoseems like a genius way to legitimately funnel dark funding. you can literally invent million dollar excuses for value transfers to arbitrary individuals.
- luxuryballs 3y agoYep there’s a whole industry around this too, you can watch these high end art auctions live where all the people in the room “bidding” are just representing the real bidders by proxy. It can get dark pretty quickly though if you start imagining what may actually be buying.
- secondcoming 3y agoThis is the case for pretty much all auctions though. Not everyone has the ability to be physically present in the auction room.
- boppo1 3y ago> you can watch these Where?
- luxuryballs 3y agoexample of a previous stream https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LzwZow7U5KE https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LzwZow7U5KE
- DANmode 3y agoSee also: art in embassies program
- whateveracct 3y agoExcept most of this art was legitimate capital A Art. Existing in the Art World. Let's not dismiss all modern art as fake. As popular of a philistine take that is amongst engineer types.
- torginus 3y ago
- intalentive 3y ago22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms." 23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art." From 45 Communist Goals, published 1958 in "The Naked Communist" and read into the Congressional Record in 1963. Worth checking out, much of it came to pass. https://www.lib.usm.edu/legacy/spcol/exhibitions/anti-comm/activism_pay-2.html https://www.lib.usm.edu/legacy/spcol/exhibitions/anti-comm/a...
- alephnerd 3y agoIt was published by the "Patriotic American Youth" - the youth wing of the precursor of the John Birch Society and affiliated with the (white) Citizens Council Movement, which was formed following Brown v Board of Education. https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/white-citizens-councils-wcc https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/white-citize... https://www.lib.usm.edu/legacy/spcol/exhibitions/anti-comm/activism_pay.html https://www.lib.usm.edu/legacy/spcol/exhibitions/anti-comm/a... https://mississippiencyclopedia.org/entries/patriotic-american-youth/ https://mississippiencyclopedia.org/entries/patriotic-americ... https://usmspecialcollections.omeka.net/exhibits/show/anticommunism/activism/pay https://usmspecialcollections.omeka.net/exhibits/show/antico...
- intalentive 3y agoYeah, it's fascinating how frequently the paranoid wingnuts of the past turned out to be right. Then you have people like Aldous Huxley and things like the Jaffe memo, painting basically the same picture but from an "inside" perspective.
- alephnerd 3y agoThese wingnuts you mentioned weren't democrats or republicans - they supported George Wallace and his "American Independent Party". I for one like having the ability to vote without paying a poll tax or taking a poll exam and drinking from any damn water fountain I wish, which are rights Segregationist White Supremacist orgs like PAY, the John Birch Society, and the Citizen Councils wanted only for White Protestant Anglo-Saxon Americans. The fact you were able to pull up a primary document published by a movement from an era that is largely not taught in depth about is honestly very suspect, unless you are studying for a BA in American History, which I honestly doubt.
- eql5 3y agoyes
- ralusek 3y agoI refuse to believe that Alegria/Corporate Memphis/Globohomo art isn't a psyop to demoralize populations with how hideous it is.
- lmm 3y agoEven if we knew it was, would anything change? People have built their careers on this stuff. Ten or twenty years ago I laughed at some things that are now just mainstream and normal - people do this stuff, they hire other people who do this stuff, one day you wake up and it's industry best practice and you have to fall in line. When I first watched the movie Cube I thought the idea that people would build a deathtrap and then put people in it because they thought the incomprehensible bureaucracy they worked for wanted that was ludicrous. Now I realise that's the real horror of the film.
- ralusek 3y agoI don't want the think-pieces about it to end until it's gone for good. It offends my eyes.
- AdmiralAsshat 3y agoWait, you mean that scene in Men In Black 3 wasn't a joke? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MbvNXZL5f0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MbvNXZL5f0
- DubiousPusher 3y agoI know they are trying to create a catchy headline but just to be 100% clear, Modernism as a movement predates the existence of the CIA by > 50 years. Modernism in music, literature, art and architecture appears around the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. It went through many iterations by the mid 20th century and the birth of the CIA out of the wartime OSS in 1947.
- pfffr 3y agoMy thoughts, too, went to Luigi Russolo and early experimental electronic music, and experimental films of the 1920s. Obviously any counterculture can still be co-opted into the mainstream. See what is happening now with various civil rights movements being worked into corporate images (and the ensuing conservative backlash). What happens when Adorno & Horkheimer become mainstream pop icons?
- blast 3y agoThe article is obviously about postwar art.
- DubiousPusher 3y agoYeah, which is why I qualified my post in the first sentence. Maybe they should've titled it, "Was Postwar Modern Art a CIA Psyop" but obviously that's just not as clickable.
- 99_00 3y agoPatronage, fine art, and propaganda have always been intertwined. It is so fundamental to the subject that it's in the textbooks. This article could be pulled from the course text for intro to modern art.
- yoyopa 3y agomodern art began well before the CIA
- throwaway1777 3y agoWas modern art a KGB psy-op covered up by the CIA?
- _8j50 3y agoPeople who spend money because they have to have a hard time understanding people who spend money because they're bored.
- ackbar03 3y agoSo Andy wharhol shot jfk?
- thatcat 3y agoBrad Troemel covered this pretty well on patreon, here's the preview https://www.instagram.com/p/CVfvbpwAoMZ/ https://www.instagram.com/p/CVfvbpwAoMZ/
- arthurcolle 3y agoIt's pretty funny this article was published on April 1st
- tootie 3y agoThat's a wildly overstated headline. Modern art goes back to the early 19th century and there were artists and patrons across the world long before the CIA. It's entirely plausible that they saw the rise of modern art as a useful vehicle to propagandize but it's ridiculous to say the entire thing was an OP.
- cookieperson 3y agoThis. Sure all three letter agencies need avenues to shuffle large somes of grey and black market cash around, art is convenient for that... Music and movies too. An extra plus for hiding messaging and all that... But I wouldn't view these operators to be as all encompassing as stories like these make them out to be... The next step is crap like "Leonardo da Vinci was actually a cia spy recruited by the freemasons", and once you go that far you're one cardboard sign and a roll of tinfoil away from an institution.
- chasd00 3y agoheh if this was true imagine the poor agents tasked with carrying it out, god what an awful job. "you want me to do what?!? I thought i was going to be behind enemy lines with a tiny camera at a fancy party like in the movies.."
- GauntletWizard 3y agoAndy Warhol was absolutely sick of it, and running out of ideas, and begging to be brought back in: https://youtu.be/1MbvNXZL5f0 https://youtu.be/1MbvNXZL5f0
- andirk 3y agoOr selling weapons to rebels to try to topple Socialist leaning countries in hopes of being able to then bogart their resources for private profit. Or yeah tiny spy cam in a tux.
- onetokeoverthe 3y ago[dead]
- scyzoryk_xyz 3y agoThere are people out there who look at what you do and think it’s a CIA psy-op. Any subject matter other folks find challenging is like this.
- reso 3y agoThe answer is: sort of, but not really. Government funding was used to promote American art internationally for the purposes of prestige and cultural power, but the movements themselves were not created by any institutions.
- toss1 3y agoEXACTLY! Modern art (and unlikely any other type of art) was not created as a psy-op. That is mere clickbaitery in headline writing. It was used, like other cultural exports, as one of many aspects of promoting US values and position.
- micromacrofoot 3y agoyeah this feels like it takes the term “psy-op” to mean anything a government supports that isn’t war? by this broad of a definition ambassadors and latin languages are also psy-ops
- kennywinker 3y agoThere’s a difference between generalized arts funding, and ideologically directing fund with the intent of fueling movement that align with your ideology. Imagine if the cia had a tech incubator (imagine, lol. Without googling it, I’m pretty sure they do). They could fund anything that seemed likely to succeed, but then it would just be regular business development. If they fund things that align with a specific set of beliefs and goals, that’s another beast entirely
- micromacrofoot 3y agobut everything the government fund aligns with some set of beliefs and goals — we don't fund any schools, they have to have curriculum standards... is public education a psy-op? States don't license any doctor, they have to meet certain criteria... are those state-level psy-ops?
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- MichaelMoser123 3y agowasn't René Magritte and "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" long before there was a CIA? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Treachery_of_Images https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Treachery_of_Images Also Picasso was a real commie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Picasso#Political_views https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Picasso#Political_views - also Diego Rivera, and Frida Kahlo.
- coldtea 3y agoThose were surrealism, cubism and muralism respectively. The modern art they refer to in the article concerns different, post-1950 kinds...
- MichaelMoser123 3y agoStill it sounds funny that they would need to employ the CIA in order to finance the Museum of Modern art in... New York, doesn't it? The USA had the "Congress for Cultural Freedom", the Soviet Union had it's "World Peace Council", funny kind of influence peddling. wikipedia has a list of "Communist front organizations" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Communist_front_organizations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Communist_front_organ... and one for "CIA front organizations" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Central_Intelligence_Agency_front_organizations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Central_Intelligence_... And nowadays the spooks are all busy with trolling on twitter (the taxpayers money is doing some real work :-) )
- jongjong 3y agoIt's frightening to realize that western society has had such powerful totalitarian elements working behind the scenes under the banner of free markets and meritocracy. No wonder everything feels fake.
- justizin 3y agoWhen I studied art history in school, a major theme was that most of the artists from long ago that we have heard of did some kind of work for whoever was in power, to make money, to create their masterpieces. Let’s not pretend the CIA is particularly good at anything other than overthrowing Latin American democracies.
- smallmouth 3y agoI cannot comment as to whether the CIA is particularly good or bad at anything, but what I will say is that they are particularly effective at guiding domestic policy and operations.
- asimovfan 3y agoIn comparison to whom exactly?
- smallmouth 3y agoElected politicians
- jascination 3y agoThey also were good at meddling in Australian politics, including overthrowing one of our best Prime Ministers: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alleged_CIA_involvement_in_the_Whitlam_dismissal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alleged_CIA_involvement_in_t...
- barbariangrunge 3y agoDumb question: what counts as modern art? Is this a particular style, as opposed to post modernism? What defines. And who are the important artists?
- xh-dude 3y agoWikipedia suggests Modern begins in the 1860s; the parent post is absolutely correct that it’s more the patronage rather than the artists or styles that drive classification in this case. Lots of things are disrupting the patronage of art around this time, especially photography, and changing markets for art result in very different kinds of art being produced.
- ratel 3y agoLet's see: Modern art starts somewhere around 1860 until 1970's. The term modern art was presumably first used in writing in the 1890's for French painters Coubert and Manet.The CIA was founded in 1947. Even MoMa predates the CIA by 18 years. So the answer must be no.
- nsajko 3y agoThat's nitpicky, seeing as CIA was created as a consolidation of several preexisting organizations.
- hguant 3y agoEh, not really, seeing as those pre-existing organizations were themselves relatively recent wartime creations. The Office of Strategic Services was created in '42, the CIA in '47. "Intelligence" in the American sphere existed in an ad hoc manner up until that point - during WW1 the US mostly relied on the Brits, and the personal insights and observations of ambassadors or military attaches.
- MichaelZuo 3y agoAd hoc groups of a few dozen competent folks each could easily start up such a program.
- syngrog66 3y agoI have had the "Emperor wears no clothes" reaction to much of so-called modern art. Much of it seemed like gaslighting or sh*t tests for snobs obsessed with class signalling and Having The Right Connections or Causes. Rather than a demonstration of any real masterful skill, rare talent or artifact of relentless practice or an eye-for-perfection, of decades-long study or trial-and-error. I mean compare a random surviving Da Vinci against the stereotypical "Man in Box" install circa 2005 NYC (say a cheap red string tied between two posts, while the audience listens to musak -- to give a dumb exemplar of the type of thing I've heard decribed as Modern Art.)
- rightbyte 3y agoLots of children are telling the (elite) crowd the emporor is naked but they want to continue pretending so hard they wont budge. It is a power move to go around naked pretending to wear cloths and get away with it. The emporor in the story was fooled. The commoners played along with the emporor's cloths but they openly mock modern art. The current situation is more of an injoke to mess with commoners. Compare modern architecture that is nice inside but look horrible for the commoners looking at it from the outside.
- Julesman 3y agoThis is one of my favorites. Many here correctly point out that modern art was not created by the CIA and that's certainly laughable. However, there are a lot folks here who don't seem to got the intent of this operation, and it was an operation with a goal. The goal was to subvert any trend toward political expression in art in the US as Soviet art was very political and a powerful force in shaping public opinion. We knew we couldn't control it so we ensured that it didn't happen here. Roughly speaking, of course.
- hindsightbias 3y agoCentral Intelligence... Agency. Agency, as in there are hundreds of millions of third-worlders who have been conditioned to believe they have no Agency. Since grammar school. Which the Agency itself isn't really any good at (at least since the 50's), but those in power locally are more than happy to exploit the boogeyman and make it part of the curricula.
- lo_zamoyski 3y agoTime and Life magazines, etc.
- yogthos 3y agoTLDR: CIA openly admits it controlled art, philosophy, scholarship, and theory to steer leftists, and along with orgs like USAID and NED openly fund such projects today. Who can guess what they do in secret.