Comment by keiferski
14 days ago
Pretty embarrassing that this is the title of a post on JSTOR.
Modern art started in the late 1800s, long before the CIA or its predecessor existed. Using this term to describe contemporary art, or abstract art more generally, is an (anti?) shibboleth that indicates you don’t really know what you’re talking about. I realize the article is about mid century artists, but I’m certain it’s being upvoted here because people think the title is referring to contemporary, 21st century art.
If you meant something more specific, like abstract expressionism, then again, it’s mostly just a continuation of previous trends. Sure, the government sponsored some things, but it’s not as if postwar American artists invented the entire concept of modern art (which is what the article seems to be implying.)
And if you meant very abstract / performance contemporary art, the kind of thing uninformed people like to describe as modern art, again, most of that got started in the 60s (with antecedents in the 10s, 20s, etc.) and was mostly by people the CIA thought were subversives.
Did you actually read the article? It lays out a pretty compelling case that the CIA established funding sources and magazines to popularize American modern art and make it a worldwide phenomenon / a cultural export to have Americans be taken seriously as taste makers.
Yes, I did and as I said, the title is pretty out of line with the actual article. Which itself has almost zero mention of modern art / 1930s-40-50s art outside of the American context.
Modern art was not a CIA psy op. Modern art precedes the CIA by a century. Mid-century American art was popularized in part by American government organizations. These are entirely different claims.
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