Abstract Expressionism, Cool Jazz, and the CIA

No. 5, 1948, by Jackson Pollock
No. 5, 1948, by Jackson Pollock (Wikipedia)

This is not a new topic, but many people still do not realize how much the Central Intelligence Agency, through various fronts (cooperative or fake foundations, for example), influenced the artistic movements during the peak of the Cold War years—the 1950s and 1960s.

For example, Abstract Expressionist painters like Jackson Pollock got huge boosts  through important exhibitions and other patronage.

Why? The Soviet Union, like Nazi Germany before it, officially disapproved of non-representational art. In that government’s view, non-representational art was morally degenerate—in other words, insufficiently propagandistic.

But we in the freedom-loving United States championed Abstract Expressionism and made it almost official in our towers of government and commerce, to the point where even people who did not like the style knew that it was High Art and above criticism.

Likewise jazz. There was no point in competing with the Soviet Union in the realm of classical music—their system identified talented musicians and ballet dancers young and trained them rigorously. They sent the best of the best on international tours, and the only problem was that sometimes the talent ran away (see, e.g., Mikhail Baryshnikov).

Soviet dissidents listened to jazz, so it was programmed on the Voice of America. And sending top American jazz musicians on world tours showed that we valued free artistic expression, etc. etc. and also, incidentally, that not all American Negroes were oppressed, an accusation frequently made by Soviet critics. We did also play up composers whom the Soviets did not like, such as Shostakovich.

It’s not exactly The Da Vinci Code, but sometimes there are indeed conspiracies behind world events.

It has always seemed to me that modern jazz began to lose its coolness cachet in the 1980s, and I cannot but think that such a loss was connected to the “winning” of the Cold War and the loss of secret funding. Abstract Expressionism has faded too, although whether the loss of secret support matters as much as the faddishness of the art world, I cannot say.

3 thoughts on “Abstract Expressionism, Cool Jazz, and the CIA

  1. Interesting article. This is from my sister, who just retired from teaching at the Art Institute in Chicago.

    “Interesting, but pretty far-fetched. Most Americans did not champion Abstract Expressionism, it was mainly the support of one very vocal and prominent art critic in NY, Clement Greenberg, who did it. And most Americans still don’t like it. I don’t think the government ever bought any. But art movements, like musical movements move on quickly now, ever more quickly with the advance of TV and now the Internet.”

    Though I’d share.

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