3 ms·
It's not just that modern art started well before the CIA existed, but the article also conveniently forgets to mention how modern art subverted communism. It
by tgv 3y ago
It's not just that modern art started well before the CIA existed, but the article also conveniently forgets to mention how modern art subverted communism.
It even can't explain how "Jackson Pollock’s gestural style [...] drew an effective counterpoint to Nazi [...] oppression," because by the time Pollock got anywhere near famous, WWII was over. Perhaps that sentence doesn't even mean anything. It's just fancy words, because a counterpoint is not an opposition, but a harmonically fitting independent voice. Style over substance, as usual.
- emodendroket 3y agoThe conspiratorial view is that people were numbed by meaningless abstract art when they could have been engaging with didactic social realist works that would have convinced them to become communist. Hard to falsify but I’m not sure how credible it is.
- jasonfarnon 3y agoIf it is generally agreed that soviets, fascists, nazis used modern art to pursue their ends (new objectivity etc) I find it implausible that US intelligence wouldn't respond in kind. Of course that doesn't mean that the manner of response detailed by this article is accurate.