Comment by ivan_gammel
14 days ago
Not the first time when the Default Country thinks they invented everything. The title is almost comical.
Modern art, as everyone should know, started in 1860s in Europe inspired by technological advances, globalization of trade and cultural exchange. Japanese art made huge blast, photography pushed to seek new forms of expression, social progress demanded new messages and new images. We had impressionism, post-impressionism, then the whole explosion of artistic forms and ideas in 1910s-1930s. All of that was Modern Art.
CIA was founded in 1947 and CIA-sponsored soft power projection was a relatively short period in the world history lasting just a few decades, a part of the bigger game played between the USA and the Soviets, which did exactly the same (and thanks to whom we have now e.g. Studio Ghibli).
Sure. But those making the claim are not talking about that.
They're talking about the post 50s abstract expressionism and pop art movements.
Just because it says "modern art" doesn't mean it refers to any and all modern art, much less 19th century art or say cubism or dada.
> But those making the claim are not talking about that
Which is exactly the problem. If you're going to make an argument that depends on analyzing one very specific thing detached from its surrounding context, you have to actually address that context, and justify why you're ignoring it.
The claim that 1950s pop art was deliberately engineered by a CIA conspiracy for geopolitical purposes can't be sustained without explicitly arguing for why it isn't a natural evolution from the existing trends in art and design that were already prevalent at the time.
> Just because it says "modern art" ...
I think we can all agree that naming anything "modern" or "new" or "nu" (for new) is simply deeply dumbfucktarded.
GP talks about the 1860s: I'm sorry but nothing about the 1860s is "modern" in 2026. Just as nothing from 2026 shall be "modern" in 2160.
It's nearly as if at least one of the two hardest problems in computer science, naming things, applied to other things too.
The art of arbitrarily redefining existing terms will never die out.
It's the art of understanding terms have different meanings based on context and use, not one based on some definition handed down by the Gods that's applicable everywhere, that we should not let die out.
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They arent redefining terms. They are pointing out that "modern art" can refer to "modern art" from the 1890s or it can refer to "modern art" from the 1940s, because both being "modern art".
There is a language comprehension issue in this thread. At no point does the title imply its invention, it does however imply it is about the CIA and it's a huge tell identifying the injection of personal bias into meaning through either lazy reading, internal personal grievances, or a lost in translation misunderstanding.
"modern art" is of larger scope than CIA; thus "CIA" is the stronger relevant subject matter which narrows the secondary subject and should be understood/read as "modern art in the CIA era" or " CIA era modern art". The "era" is derived by applying "CIA" to "modern art".
This is probably where the mis-read/mis-translation happened. Since "era" is not explicit, modern art narrowed to all things within CIA scope could imply the CIA had a department full of alternative lifestyle bohemian spys creating and spreading modern art (not far off though, they commissioned works and funded related entities). A basic knowing of the CIA would dismiss this as absurd.
However, a translation error happening here can turn "modern art created by the CIA" into "modern art invented by the CIA".
Cognition is naming thing and counting things.
Or as Aristotle would say, start with definitions.
I really do not get arguing about semantics. It is all arbitrary. You need to agree on what is meant to even intend on having a conversation.
This is a rich thing to say about the term "Modern", which is basically baked in with an expiration date.
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I agree that it is incredibly stupid to call something from 1870 "modern". The word modern has a a clear meaning of "just now" / "contemporary". Not two hundred years ago.
It shouldn't be attached to anything that can age out of this meaning.
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yea and psyops use that art, its not a modern art
Overall a great point, but I have a nit-pick:
> Modern art, as everyone should know, started in 1860s in Europe
As someone who is active in the German art scene, the understanding is not that clear-cut. Modern art, as I learned it, is "art in the modern period". So everything after the middle ages. Basically when people stopped only drawing religious art and portraits of nobles. What started in the 1860s is "modernism".
The term used more often (at least in Germany) is "contemporary art". Which translates to "everything after WW 2". I've seen a lot of contemporary art museums, but few modern art museums.
The 1860s as a starting decade is a popular conventional definition in English, in other languages "modern art" may be defined differently. But you are absolutely right, it makes more sense to call post-WW2 art the contemporary art or just postmodernism, because something that happened long before the birth of the half of the population of the planet isn't really "contemporary".
I think this may be a translation issue, as I would always have understood "modern art" to refer to the movement that began in the 1860s, and (English) Wikipedia appears to back this up. Like others have said, "contemporary art" means art of the current time.
> I've seen a lot of contemporary art museums, but few modern art museums.
My experience is the opposite, I have seen plenty of modern art museums, most famously (probably) the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Some modern art museums also feature contemporary art but nevertheless their main focus and brand is modern art (eg, the Tate Modern).
No, Modern or Modernist art (with a capital m) is a specific period of art history. So yes it doesn’t tend to have museums but there are shows dedicated to Modern art.
Contemporary art always refers to art from the specific period the speaker is living in, ie our present moment.
>Basically when people stopped only drawing religious art and portraits of nobles.
We drew vastly more art. The kind you describe was just more likely to be preserved as the institutions they were on about and the buildings they resided in persisted.
Based on historical books, funny drawings on toiletes (like boxes they used as toilets and then fertilizer) were super popular.
We dont show them in museums tho.
Surely people created a lot more art, but you're eliding the dynamic of professionalism. Art is ludicrously labor-intensive and so the vast majority of professional art (i.e. most art worth saving) would have been done for rich people.
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> So everything after the middle ages. Basically when people stopped only drawing religious art and portraits of nobles. What started in the 1860s is "modernism".
Ok, but you are reinforcing parent's point (which I agree with TBH).
Yes, I agree with the parent's point. I just wanted to point out that "modern art" is a little bit of a complicated term.
What kind of art do you think the MoMA (Museum of Modern Art), houses?
I've never been there, but the German Wikipedia says it houses "modern and contemporary art". I'd assume that in their vast collection, you might even find stuff that's older than the 1860s.
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- contemporary art -
Now I have to nitpick, too too :-)
According to my understanding on the usage of "contemporary art", this is a "time relative term", meaning it describes usually "what was usually/common around a given time/period"?
"the Default Country" is a good one. I'll have to start using that.
I think it a reference to "default city" from the russian internet, when people noticed that people from Moscow never specify the city when talking about topics which would normally require knowledge of which city are they residents of
Eventually it evolved, sometimes people say "hey, I'm from DC" or "hey, I live in DC2" (that means the second largest city, Saint-Petersburg)
Yes. Default Country for the world on many English-speaking forums is the same as Default City for Russia.
Especially from someone whose "modern art" means mid-19th centuary European art under an article that starts with "In the mid-twentieth century".
For fun, ask a citizen of the Default Country where cars were invented ...
At some point they discovered it was easier to just convince everyone they were exceptional than to actually be exceptional.
I think you might be reacting to the title only. The claim in the article is better phrased as “the Modern art was psy-op-ed by the US govt, especially through CIA”. They didn’t invent it, they may not even liked it personally. The very same artists making these paintings were not too far from being left leaning and sympathizing with regimes and ideas US government fought against. Nevertheless, it was still worth it, the sponsorship was seen as a counter to the Soviet art and culture. If anything a least as a “look you can even create these crazy paint splatters in a free society and nobody sends you to gulag” kind of angle.
Jain. If you leave only the facts, it becomes a bit boring, because everyone did that and continues doing so via various institutions. But the article pitches with the title and first paragraph a different story. And I doubt that e.g. Picasso was aware of the battle for his mind.
By "modern art" they mean things like abstract expressionism.
Reduction of modern art to abstract expressionism is the same as reduction of cinema to MCU. Acceptable for a talk over couple beers, disqualifying factor for pretend-to-be intellectuals, mainly because it is cherry-picking based on the scale of a scandal rather than genuine interest in the history of art.
No, those are not the same. You might say it's like reducing superhero movies to "superhero movies made in the last 20 years", which actually most people do, and it's mostly understandable. Maybe those people wouldn't have what you'd call a "genuine interest in the superhero genre" but who cares? They weren't trying to demonstrate that, and what they were saying didn't require it.
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That is not Modern art but an offshoot of it, like postmodern and pop art.
Which is even more absurd
Not really absurd. That scene nearly dominated the art scene in the post war / cold war period, and for layman casual uses (and even for several critic treatments), it was almost synonymous with modern fine art in general (not "modernist" art, modern, as in contemporary).
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'modern' is such an omnibus of a term. I was recently looking at Jasper John's American Flag and it hit me that the stars are weird---because it is from 1955 so before Hawaii and Alaska, and so it has 48 stars in even rows. It was amusing to realize that this epitomy of modern art is quite ancient :)
Let's hear what non-default country invented pop-art in the 50s.
The one with the young Queen, which also invented English language…
And Xerox invented the GUI but who cares?
'Mid 20th century' is when the explosion of mass media happened, and these concepts were globalized.
It's worth studying for sure, and frankly, it seems the CIA came to a reasonable conclusion. The backed art for literally the right reasons. Good on them.
You clearly didn't even click through to the article, and neither did most of the people arguing with you.
Both Hitler and Stalin only respected/allowed representational art. They both hated abstract art. Any promotion of non-representational art was in effect a rejection of Stalin (and Mao and Kim).
Socialist Realism was the name for the representational art promoted by Stalin, Mao & Kim. It was always a propaganda piece.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_realism
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/s/socialist-realism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_in_Nazi_Germany
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/d/degenerate-art
If there was anything that Default Country did better than Commieland, the CIA would promote it. Art? Sure. Why not, some people like that stuff.
Thanks for the new term.