Summary made with perplexity.ai: The CIA played a key role in spreading Abstract Expressionism and its ideology worldwide to combat the opposing style of Socialist Realism and, by extension, communist culture at large. The CIA saw Abstract Expressionism as an opportunity to promote American culture and values worldwide. The agency employed covert methods to make Abstract Expressionism so popular that it became quite difficult for an artist to find success working in any other style. The Congress for Cultural Freedom, an organization funded by the CIA, gave the agency the ideal front to promote its covert interest in Abstract Expressionism.
Some links from which this summary comes from: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-was-cia-weapon-1578808.html https://www.thecollector.com/abstract-expressionism-waging-a-cultural-cold-war-2/ https://www.theartstory.org/movement/socialist-realism/ https://news.artnet.com/art-world/artcurious-cia-art-excerpt-1909623 https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/why-did-the-cia-sponsor-jackson-pollock/
It’s crazy to think how much CIA shaped the path of art, if all that is true. They may also have influenced in the popularization of avant-garde American classical music composers, like John Cage. I wonder to which extent CIA is responsible for the widespread of American-made cultural products, like pop music, rock and fast foods, and which artistic or cultural movements became influential throught artifficial means (instead of organically become succesful due to artistic merit).
An additional note: a similar thing may have happened internally in Brazil. I once heard that the Brazilian musical genre “Sertanejo Universitário”, that skyrocketed in popularity during the 2000s and early 2010s to become one of the most popular Brazilian musical genres, may have owe part of this success to a funding from the big agribusiness players, which aimed to strengthen their monopoly over small poducers, or smothing like that.
Jesus Christ, despite completely admitting to the all of the shit CIA did, thecollector still published an article absolutely filled to the brim with liberal ideology claiming it an “expression of freedom” and a “necessary antidote to state mandated Socialist Realism”.
Fucking hell.
I’m always caught off guard by how many anticommunist arguments are just projection.
Expressionist art never made sense to me. Like, someone made a couple of pseudo-random brush strokes over a canvas and… people liked it? I thought, is this what art is? Never would have guessed the CIA had their hands in this, however, in retrospect, it does make sense they would want to try and do this. Just boggles my mind that they succeeded.
On the flip side, TIL there is such a thing such as “Socialist Realism”. I wouldn’t mind it one bit if this style came back to replace “banana duct-taped into wall”-type of “art”.
but u silly silly tankie, you have to realize that the art style heavily pushing
individualismapolitical self interpretation of thescribblesthoughtful brushwork is truly free and correct and won purely thanks to it’sCIA funding and astroturfingown meritnot like some state mandated ebil totalitarian “”““art””" that actually holds a message specifically to indoctrinate the masses, i though am happily IMMUNE to propaganda 😤
I always just assumed it was a lazy way to do money laundering and tax write-offs lol
Why not both? xD
xD
🇵🇱?
Nope, 🇵🇹. Did “xD” originate from 🇵🇱? I kinda just saw it somewhere and started using it. :)
Generally “xD” is something that is extremely prominant in Polish texting and internet culture, it didn’t really die down in 2010’s like in the rest of the internet.
Sometimes some people react to funny stuff while laughing by saying “iks de” literally, fucking speaking the laughing emoji xD
So because of that, it’s quite a giveaway of anyone writing in english and attaching “xD”, that they might be from Poland.
Damn, TIL. That’s pretty cool. I may have played some CS:Source matches with Polish people, then.
CS:Source
Definitely, you couldn’t have missed us back then on EU servers.
I think it’s reductive to say that it’s “pseudo-random brush strokes”. There’s a bizarre level of sophistication and regularity to Jackson Pollock when analyzed mathematically.
That doesn’t mean I enjoy Pollock’s art, as I absolutely do not, but some other expressionism is more fun if you look into it.
Now i feel kinda funny about that. I generally like realism in art and for that reason i was attacked basically every time the art is the topic of conversation, especially about socialist realism.
Turns out, the “left conspiracy theories” meme is insufficient, because fucking CIA had their hands with things i even didn’t suspected.
Also Zhdanov yet again vindicated.
“I wonder to which extent (the) CIA is responsible for the widespread of American-made cultural products, like pop music, rock and fast foods, and which artistic or cultural movements became influential through artificial means.”
I’m willing to wager they influence it far more than we think. Given military involvement in Hollywood and competitive FPS gaming it’s very much not out of the question for them to have influence in other forms of art and entertainment. Especially with china’s entertainment industry on the rise with tiktok blowing up and video games like genshin impact being immensely successful, we have been and will continue to see an increase in state interest and involvement in art and entertainment.
How do they think this shit up. Like why does it seem like the CIA always figures something out to fuck with progress, and it just works. Like FFS reality could you left the douchbags fail for a bit?
