Modern art was CIA ’weapon’ - World - News

Modern art was CIA ’weapon’ - World - News - The Independent
►http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-was-cia-weapon-1578808.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/incoming/article8307106.ece/binary/original/pollockTateModern.gif

“For decades in art circles it was either a rumour or a joke, but now it is confirmed as a fact. The Central Intelligence Agency used American modern art - including the works of such artists as Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko - as a weapon in the Cold War. In the manner of a Renaissance prince - except that it acted secretly - the CIA fostered and promoted American Abstract Expressionist painting around the world for more than 20 years.”

Modern art was CIA ’weapon’ - World - News - The Independent
►http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-was-cia-weapon-1578808.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/incoming/article8307106.ece/binary/original/pollockTateModern.gif

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.

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.

Modern art was CIA ’weapon’ - World - News - The Independent

►http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-was-cia-weapon-1578808.html

Plutôt rigolo...

For decades in art circles it was either a rumour or a joke, but now it is confirmed as a fact. The Central Intelligence Agency used American modern art - including the works of such artists as Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko - as a weapon in the Cold War. In the manner of a Renaissance prince - except that it acted secretly - the CIA fostered and promoted American Abstract Expressionist painting around the world for more than 20 years.

http://www.independent.co.uk/incoming/article8307106.ece/binary/original/pollockTateModern.gif

The connection is improbable. This was a period, in the 1950s and 1960s, when the great majority of Americans disliked or even despised modern art - President Truman summed up the popular view when he said: “If that’s art, then I’m a Hottentot.” As for the artists themselves, many were ex- communists barely acceptable in the America of the McCarthyite era, and certainly not the sort of people normally likely to receive US government backing.

#art #politique #cia #espionage #guerre_froide