{"id":2001,"date":"2010-11-16T11:24:49","date_gmt":"2010-11-16T18:24:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2001"},"modified":"2010-11-16T12:27:42","modified_gmt":"2010-11-16T19:27:42","slug":"how-the-cia-turned-abstraction-into-official-high-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2001","title":{"rendered":"How the CIA Turned Abstract Art into Official High Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"

How did Abstract Expressionism<\/a> come to dominate the mid-20th-century art scene?<\/p>\n

Partly because the Central Intelligence Agency paid for it<\/a>\u2014all part of the Cold War<\/a> with the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n

Abstract or non-representational art was also being produced in the early years of the USSR, during the early 1920s. Then Joseph Stalin<\/a>, still the champion mass-murderer of all time, took power in 1924 and controlled the USSR until his death in 1953.<\/p>\n

Under Stalin, all art, literature, film-making, etc., had either to serve the state as propaganda or at least express “safe” sentiments. Nothing experimental or critical was allowed\u2014which is why, for example, a satirical novel of the 1930s, Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita<\/a>, <\/em>could not be published until the 1960s, after Stalin’s death, when the USSR was under the somewhat more moderate leadership of Nikita Khruschchev<\/a>.<\/p>\n

How better then, in the struggle for world opinion between the USSR and “the West,” to show that in the West artists could be experimental, critical, unrestricted, and free than to showcase the works of Abstract Expressionists?<\/p>\n

(See Technoccult for a photo of abstract painter Jackson Pollack at work.<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Never mind if popular taste rejected abstraction in the West as well, the propaganda war was more important.<\/p>\n

In 1947 the State Department organised and paid for a touring international exhibition entitled “Advancing American Art”, with the aim of rebutting Soviet suggestions that America was a cultural desert. But the show caused outrage at home, prompting [President Harry] Truman to make his Hottentot remark and one bitter congressman to declare: “I am just a dumb American who pays taxes for this kind of trash.” The tour had to be cancelled.<\/p>\n

The US government now faced a dilemma. This philistinism, combined with Joseph McCarthy’s<\/a> hysterical denunciations of all that was avant-garde or unorthodox, was deeply embarrassing. It discredited the idea that America was a sophisticated, culturally rich democracy. It also prevented the US government from consolidating the shift in cultural supremacy from Paris to New York since the 1930s. To resolve this dilemma, the CIA was brought in.<\/p>\n

The connection is not quite as odd as it might appear. At this time the new agency, staffed mainly by Yale and Harvard graduates, many of whom collected art and wrote novels in their spare time, was a haven of liberalism when compared with a political world dominated by McCarthy or with J Edgar Hoover’s FBI. If any official institution was in a position to celebrate the collection of Leninists, Trotskyites and heavy drinkers that made up the New York School<\/a>, it was the CIA.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Fake CIA-sponsored foundations funded art shows and traveling exhibitions. Museums, galleries, and events received secret subsidies. All the machinery of Big Money and High Art was set in motion to promote Abstract Expressionism.<\/p>\n

Writer Frances Stonor Saunders asks,<\/p>\n

Would Abstract Expressionism have been the dominant art movement of the post-war years without this patronage? The answer is probably yes. Equally, it would be wrong to suggest that when you look at an Abstract Expressionist painting you are being duped by the CIA.<\/p>\n

But look where this art ended up: in the marble halls of banks, in airports, in city halls, boardrooms and great galleries. For the Cold Warriors who promoted them, these paintings were a logo, a signature for their culture and system which they wanted to display everywhere that counted. They succeeded.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Liking this kind of art became a marker of hipness and\u00a0 cultural sophistication. As a recent New York Times <\/em>article on “The Sociology of the Hipster<\/a>” notes,<\/p>\n

Taste is not stable and peaceful, but a means of strategy and competition. Those superior in wealth use it to pretend they are superior in spirit. Groups closer in social class who yet draw their status from different sources use taste and its attainments to disdain one another and get a leg up. These conflicts for social dominance through culture are exactly what drive the dynamics within communities whose members are regarded as hipsters.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Renaissance painters worked for princes and cardinals. Abstract Expressions, although they may not have realized it, also served the power structure of their time.<\/p>\n

An afterthought on jazz: <\/strong>It would not surprise me to learn that American jazz musicians received much the same kind of Cold War subsidies from the CIA. After all, jazz was avant-garde, and the presence of many Negro musicians\u2014to use the favored racial term of the 1950s and ’60s\u2014presented a happy multiracial picture of America, ammunition against Communist attacks on race relations here.<\/p>\n

Can the decline in modern jazz music in recent decades be linked to the end of the Cold War?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How did Abstract Expressionism come to dominate the mid-20th-century art scene? Partly because the Central Intelligence Agency paid for it\u2014all part of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. Abstract or non-representational art was also being produced in the early years of the USSR, during the early 1920s. Then Joseph Stalin, still the champion mass-murderer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-2001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-culture"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-wh","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2908,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2908","url_meta":{"origin":2001,"position":0},"title":"Abstract Expressionism, Cool Jazz, and the CIA","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 26, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"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\u2014the 1950s and 1960s. For example, Abstract Expressionist painters like Jackson\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"art\"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=art"},"img":{"alt_text":"No. 5, 1948, by Jackson Pollock","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/220px-No._5_1948-147x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":11638,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11638","url_meta":{"origin":2001,"position":1},"title":"Paganism, Art, And Fashion: “Feminist Interpretation of Witches”","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 5, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"In her artlcle for The Pomegranate, Katy Deepwell, editor of the feminist art journal n.paradoxa, discusses \"Feminist Interpretations of Witches and the Witch Craze in Contemporary Art by Women.\" (Free download at this time \u2014 and the illustrations are in color where possible.) In her abstract, she writes, This article\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"art\"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/sheela-na-gig.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":34,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=34","url_meta":{"origin":2001,"position":2},"title":"Solstice at the Stones","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 30, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Archaeology magazine got around to noting the contemporary Pagan use of Stonehenge and Avebury circles. The link will give you an abstract of the article; the full version is print-only.","rel":"","context":"In \"England\"","block_context":{"text":"England","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=england"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7277,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7277","url_meta":{"origin":2001,"position":3},"title":"TV Pagans Looking Good \u2013 or at Least Better","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 13, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"From the abstract to Robert A. Saunder's paper \"Primetime Paganism: Popular-Culture Representations of Europhilic Polytheism in Game of Thrones and Vikings,\" reprinted at Medievalists.net, in which he argues two points: First, that traditional filmic treatments of pagans [sic] qua villains is shifting, with contemporary popular culture allowing for more nuanced\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Paganism\"","block_context":{"text":"Paganism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=paganism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4566,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4566","url_meta":{"origin":2001,"position":4},"title":"CFP: Culture and Cosmos","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 29, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Call for papers . . . CULTURE AND COSMOS Vol. 17,\u00a0 no. 1: Literature and the Stars We are inviting submissions for Vol. 17 no 1 (Spring\/Summer 2013) on Literature and the Stars. Papers may focus on any time period or culture, and should deal either with representations of astronomy\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"astrology\"","block_context":{"text":"astrology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=astrology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11651,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11651","url_meta":{"origin":2001,"position":5},"title":"What Female Heathen Instagrammers Reveal","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 6, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Another article from the new issue of The Pomegranate on the theme of Paganism, art, and fashion, guest-edited by Caroline Tully. \"Hashtag Heathens: Contemporary Germanic Pagan Feminine Visuals on Instagram,\" by Ross Downing. You can download the entire paper free at the link this summer. Here is the abstract: A\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"art\"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=art"},"img":{"alt_text":"Instagrammer Helheimen as the goddess Hel.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Fig.-2-Helheimen-as-the-goddess-Hel300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Fig.-2-Helheimen-as-the-goddess-Hel300.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Fig.-2-Helheimen-as-the-goddess-Hel300.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Fig.-2-Helheimen-as-the-goddess-Hel300.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Fig.-2-Helheimen-as-the-goddess-Hel300.jpg?resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2001"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2001\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2006,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2001\/revisions\/2006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}