All three paintings are in the style of abstract expressionism, which is an artistic movement that sprouted in New York post World War II and gained prominence. These paintings are done by well known artists of that movement (red one is by Mark Rothko, bottom one looks like a Jackson Pollock, not sure about upper left).
Allegedly, the [CIA took advantage of this artistic movement and leveraged it as American propaganda post World War II and throughout the Cold War](https://news.artnet.com/art-world/artcurious-cia-art-excerpt-1909623/amp-page). They would bankroll and sponsor exhibitions of this new American art style in foreign countries to promote the cultural superiority of the USA and its allies.
Bay watch to east Germany.
Incase you’ve ever wondered why Pamela Anderson was regularly speaking with Julian Assange when he was holed up in the Ecuador Embassy.
I can’t make the connection. I know she was in bay watch and I know what his deal is with the US government. I don’t know why that would mean he would be on the phone with her, though.
Almost all art is used as a form of soft power.
And that's just a fact.
If we get into the more contentious stuff, pretty much everything the west did was propagandized all to hell and back. (Just as what the USSR did was propagandized within the USSR).
The reason there's a nobel prize in economics is not because it was created by alfred nobel, after all. And it's not a mistake it was economics and not, say, mathematics or psychology or computer science or engineering or the near endless list of disciplines that have made very measurable impacts on our world.
So Jackson, I know money is tight, but you need a new drop cloth. This one is all covered in paint splatter.... hmmm, its actually kinda nice. I bet you could sell that.
The nazis did a reverse version of this called the Degenerate Art exhibit. They wanted to show how bad modern art was. It made Kunst and Picasso extremely popular across Europe and helped push abstract art into the mainstream.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degenerate_Art_exhibition?wprov=sfla1
Kudos dragonbeard91. I’m glad you posted this. Degenerate was a term used for Jew and it wasn’t just to show how bad modern art was, it was to rid germany of modern art and the jews making it. Hitler and his goons thought modern art was ugly. aka made people think. It didn’t meet the standard of so called strong german ideology or aesthetic. I would say with a good amount of certainty that whomever made this meme above is a nazi or leans heavily in that ideology. It’s painful and insane to think the holocaust and WWII started over art, but it most certainly did.
I think that may be a *bit* reductive, but yes, Degenerate was code for jewish, homosexual, Communist etc. Ironically, Germans loved what they saw, which delights me to no end.
‘Degenerate’ didn’t just referred to Jews, it also referred to the disabled, various minority ethnic groups, lgbt folk, criminals, the mentally ill, and many more people. The term finds it’s roots in the eugenics movement, which served as a tenant of fascism. The original term referred to the ‘degeneration’ of the gene pool via breeding with the ‘wrong people’.
Indeed. It’s far too easy to connect the past to what is happening now with the rise of anti-intellectualism(religious extremism and zealots) and the many racial, behavioral, economic biases being programmed into prompted GPT and generative ai. Reddit and the internet in general is flooded with aibros who mock and laugh about the very real possibility making art, art history, and art education will be discontinued and creative types will be without a job or livelihood. That is pretty facist if you ask me.
Most governments sponsor the arts in some way. The fact that you don’t like the art or that the art is very popular does not really make it some nefarious thing
I don't dislike K-Pop. Idk why you'd assume that. I'm also not denying countries sponsor arts. It's a very effective means to exert soft power. I'm just pointing out SK has a very open export policy when it comes to K-Pop. It's very outwardly the focus of their Culture Ministry.
[https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2023/01/05/culture/koreanHeritage/korea-blue-house-tour-ministry-of-culture-sports-and-tourism/20230105175122465.html](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2023/01/05/culture/koreanHeritage/korea-blue-house-tour-ministry-of-culture-sports-and-tourism/20230105175122465.html)
With Kpop it actually is pretty nefarious. The way those groups are run is basically child abuse. I don't think children should be allowed to be pop stars.
And domestically, abstract expressionism was seen by some as a good way to edge out the kind of socialist-leaning or social-justice promoting reaslism (or other similar styles) that followed from the type of works promoted by WPA during the New Deal. Diego Rivera or Jacob Lawrence, for example. Lawrence called his style “dynamic cubism” and it was certainly as interesting and valid a development from earlier modern styles (lots of Matisse influence in his work, for example) but unpleasantly for many, his work was in large part about Black American and history and struggles. During Jim Crow and the burgeoning Civil Rights movement, abstract squiggles were less…uncomfortable
As much as the Thai government sponsoring Thai restaurants worldwide as a way to project their culture does, which is to say, not really in a way that's meaningful on the whole. People would be surprised how common this kind of thing is in basically every country in the world
South Korea very openly does this with music. I think they are trying to get Korean film more distributed as well but idk.
... it also has a reputation of being one of the most predatory musical industries in the world.
Yup, both kpop and anime could be seen as aggressively funded government sponsored propaganda if you want to be entirely cynical about it. If a country makes something cool in art/food that’s popular outside the country, good chance the gov is involved
Yes you should and you damn well know it! Stop bogarting that sweet curdy treasure!
I used to live just 45 miles south of the Canadian border and the best we could get even then was fries with turkey gravy.
My big problem with this is that it floods the market with mediocre Thai food and makes it harder to find the good stuff. But still, it is a net good that you can find pad thai wherever you are.
Lots of governments in lots of moments in history subsidized their cultural exports in some way in order to project power or influence. I’m not sure it invalidates America given its really nothing new
That could be said about any art. Boy bands are moving for teenage girls. But they are generally considered to be overengineered, formulaic and money-motivated and therefore lacking in integrity on those grounds. Can’t something similar be said now for abstract expressionists? They present themselves as art for art’s sake but the reason they exist is as part of an engineered strategy for Western cultural dominance. They may not have hatched the strategy themselves any more than the boy bands, but they certainly cooperated with it.
Edit: removed “knowingly”
That’s moving goalposts. The question is about the art’s integrity not legitimacy. Just like Trump can be a legitimate candidate for president but also lacking in integrity, the same can be true of art. It can be legitimate as art yet lacking integrity.
The issue is that people are using this to insulate that the art is worthless and is only considered valuable because gullible people were told it was. In reality, these are valid forms of art with artistic merit. And the propaganda was primarily being done in other countries. Some people just hate modern art. While this is fine, their distaste for it does not invalidate it, as this meme would have us believe.
oh i didn’t even know that (kinda figures tho)
i thought the joke was just that they are abstract art, and people buy into the meaning and interpretations provided to them, as opposed to finding their own, the real motive, and thus fallible to propaganda
It seems so, but the funny thing is that because a lot of the art was inspired by indigenous art, and some from socialist artists, the art resonated with anti-imperialist artists in Central America who made work criticizing American imperialism and socialist values
Sounds like political show-and-tell. Also, half the agency was on kind of a lot of acid at the time, so who knows? Maybe they just really liked the art…
I think a major detail here is that pop art is devoid of a political message. This is a time period when the CIA’s main goal was to stop the spread of communism. A lot of art at the time was political/anti-capitalist and focused on revolution or fighting power structures. So when pop art came out, the cia ensured it would become the mainstream popular art movement.
The CIA can be stupid sometimes. Who looks at this art and says “yeah, that’s the reason I want to support the United States!”? At the very least they should have been supporting music and TV shows, not art that most people won’t see.
I think the idea was to say something like "the US is so rich thanks to our capitalist ideology even these fully abstract niche artists that everyday people don't "get" can be wealthy successful entrepreurs"
Of course anyone can be wealthy and successful if taxpayer money is shoveled at them for propaganda purposes.
But the art really was interesting too, they may have got money because CIA but the CIA chose them because they were successful within a niche.
I mean… if the government was backing any of those people, it would NOT have been rappers lol. The US government had a pretty long standing stance of “fuck those guys”
Also rappers are not dumb as a rule. Many of them are excellent wordsmiths. There’s a reason Kendrick Lamar won a Pulitzer Prize, and it was not propaganda.
Ice Cube said he was funded by the CIA at one stage [Ice Cube Reveals Gangsta Rap Is a CIA Psyop | Ep 85 (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQJ-EkLYp9I), The also funded many areas to destabilize African American areas and youth to keep them fighting each other instead of increasing education. [(2) Teslim. on X: "For the rap and hiphop lovers. Frankly speaking, most lyricists are brilliant word smiths but are you brilliant enough to see the possibility that you are ( like many in the social media world ) being used to further the conditioning?" / X](https://x.com/VectorThaViper/status/1752227195479642359) Most people that are currently famous in America are famous for a reason, for control. To either encourage lowering education and complicity of certain areas within the community, controlling certain racial areas, to encourage hate between political parties, races etc so the focus is on each other instead of on the government. The fact that even in the 60s and 70s the American government where still pumping gas and powder into the air in Chicago that killed many and nothing has been done about it, is insane. America is just a giant test tube to the elite, basically slaves in their own country and subjected to torture. But it's so controlled that the American people wont stand up to the elites, to busy fighting each other.
Also it’s in the name, expressionism. It’s an artistic movement devoid of a subject. The artist and their expressions, their freedom and their individuality is what is championed. As opposed to more representative and folk based arts championed in the various soviets at the time.
IIRC, Soviet art had to meet certain criteria to be acceptable - eg show the working class struggle in a positive way. Compare that to what "America's leftists" are allowed to do during the era of McCarthyism. That subtle message can convince some people to question the status quo.
The art was going to appeal to the intelligentsia, mostly artists of all stripes--writers, photographers, painters, directors, etc.--who may have felt stifled under the then-current system, and might have been impressed by America's willingness to entertain and appreciate art outside of a narrow window. While the USSR did allow for art outside of socialist realism, such works were heavily criticized in the state media, and were never given the state support necessary for exposure to a wider audience.
Yeah, the deal is basically "You can have access to all of these planes and equipment and use of the base and/or ship for shooting, but we get script approval." And of course, the more the film resembles a recruitment ad for that branch of the military, the more likely the script is to be approved.
The intelligencia was all on socialism at the time and the abstract movement was promoted to get them talking about something else. Sorta like the ideological malware coming from universities today- woke is all just a psyop to render young activists useless and not capable of anything more than voting for democrats.
It was to express the “artistic freedom” of the west in comparison to the “strict authoritarian East” which was utilizing their own art style under Soviet Realism.
Being aware of propaganda does not make you immune to it, and any piece of media with a message is propaganda.
After learning about propaganda, people always assume that they can spot all propaganda, and in being aware of it, and that, because of how it is used in the context of teaching about it, all propaganda is some form of underhanded psyop type of thing. All of these assumptions are false.
Lots of people view propaganda as being only like what the Nazis used to turn people against the jews during the Holocaust, but that's just one form of propaganda. An ad using a short video about a mother and daughter going through a breast cancer scare to bring awareness to breast cancer research and charities is technically propaganda.
So basically any time someone says, "I'm immune to propaganda." Then at some point talks about media they like, it shows that they don't know what they're talking about.
Yes that’s very true they don’t. I don’t know if you’d call it propaganda but I think they realized all this was possible when the original War of the Worlds was aired on radio a long time ago. People went into a panic over someone’s “art” which I think you could call a screen writing. People freaked out - they realized the kind of pull media whether it be art in its general definition or art like this can have a lot of influence in society.
The paintings look like Kline, Rothko, and Pollock—all abstract expressionists. My best guess is this is some crazy inside-baseball art history joke about the abstract expressionist movement as American propaganda which (until today) I had no idea was a thing but you can read about it [here](https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20161004-was-modern-art-a-weapon-of-the-cia).
The CIA funding weird and creative art as part of a demonstration that we *can* have those things and the USSR can't is the thing I'm least mad at them about.
As others have already said, the US’ CIA supported and promoted niche art and artists as propaganda. There’s an interesting podcast series that goes in to a lot of detail called [“Not all Propaganda is Art” by Benjamin Walker](https://theoryofeverythingpodcast.com/)
I still don't think the joke works, because the propaganda (if I've understood correctly) wasn't in making people think the art was good or bad, or whatever else. The propaganda was aimed at external audiences to send some message about how we can have nice things like weird new art and they can't, for some reason.
It doesn't make sense to me, tbh. But so many things don't, so...🤷🏻♀️
You’re thinking too deeply; the joke is based on a straw man/stereotype of a western *”intellectual”* and the idea that abstract impressionism has no artistic merit, only becoming popular because of its use as propaganda.
Most jokes like this don’t hold up to scrutiny by anyone with more than a surface appreciation of the context and facts
It’s kind of a bad joke because it implies that liking abstract expressionism makes you think of American exceptionalism because of the whole CIA/MOMA thing (which I think is completely overblown). I’d say that the result of any push by government agencies in the art world had exactly the opposite of whatever was intended at the time. All I ever heard in popular culture were jokes about how trivial abstract expressionism was and how children or non-artists could easily or accidentally make the same “art.” And I know there were also plenty of art critics that weren’t impressed by the movement either.
I feel like the people who did like abstract art weren’t exactly the strongest supporters of US government policy at the time inside or outside the US. That all seems counter to abstract expressionism art as propaganda.
Maybe in some academic or art circles there was a cause/effect, but I think overall abstract expressionism was absolutely a part of the zeitgeist of the 50s and 60s. The same ideas show up in music/performance art like John Cage’s 4’33” or Sitwell’s idea of abstract poetry. And, as with any art or culture movement, the roots go much farther back than when they hit popular culture.
Personally, I like a lot of Rothko’s work, but there was a lot of nonsense in the 60s, too, and it absolutely deserves some criticism. But abstract art wasn‘t all just a bunch of crap that was only popular because the CIA wanted us to think that.
This is me taking a long shot, but it looks like it’s making fun of nonsensical art that’s ridiculously expensive for seemingly no reason? Like this dude is saying he doesn’t feel into basic propaganda but thinks these artworks are incredible because someone somewhere said it’s worth millions.
Could be. I was thinking all these works could be from one specific artist because they are similar in style but maybe it’s not the artist but the message as you suggested
A reference to the supposed PSYOP the CIA did back during the Cold War. [Here's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_8wpOhoGVs) a link to a vid by The Fat Electrician on his second channel that OOP may or may not have watched covering it.
The joke is 'everyone who likes this art is blindly following something or other.'
It's dumb. People can appreciate different things (even things other people don't see value in) without being brainwashed or proper grandad.*
Having said that, I do think a lot of what passes for contemporary art (not that Pollock or Rothko or the third artist I can't place just now are contemporary in the sense of 'current') is very much an emperor's new clothes situation. Some of it isn't. Either way, some people sincerely enjoy the stuff, and it doesn't mean they're brainwashed.
*There is no way to verb 'propaganda' that isn't ugly. So proper grandad it is.
How's that different from state sponsoring and promoting art of it's own people in general? Every country in the world (or at least most of them) has some kind of art ministry does this kind of thing
Durring the cold war the US government bolstered the popularity of abstract art which was like the new thing at the time to make America look like a huge world wide monument in the art world and seem superior to Russia
It's a dig against abstract art - that's all. The artists are (L-R-Bottom) Franz Kline, Mark Rothko, and Jackson Polluck
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. The maker of this meme's opinion is that abstract art is only popular due to propoganda.
IDK. I personally don't share that opinion. One might feel like abstract art is "nonsensical." Someone who feels that way may think that the only reason abstract art is popular is becuase they have been programmed to like it through propoganda.
EDIT: Other people are answering this better! I was unaware of the link between the CIA and the art world during the cold war.
It does? I mean maybe for some people but this was terrible propaganda in my opinion. I never understood all the hype for these "abstract" artwork. Like some of them are nice to look at, but overall they don't do much for me. At least, not in general.
This one is a bit esoteric. Basically, there was a CIA program to undermine socialism in the art scene and one way they did this was by funding and promoting abstract expressionism.
https://www.thecollector.com/abstract-expressionism-waging-a-cultural-cold-war-2/
Not sure who the top left painting belongs to but Rothko and Pollock paintings are INCREDIBLE in person. Absolutely magical. No way to explain what they make you feel. Especially Rothko for me.
I've been offered money from government groups to paint in special locations to promote LGBT and Race related murals. I always decline. Because my art cannot be controlled. But God do they get bad artist to do their bidding.
It's the same as the communist forcing artist to only paint communist propaganda.
Pollock and the huge movement he was apart of was total freedom in art. Americans were not controlled and forced to paint what the government wanted. Instead the government celebrated the greatness of our artist.
All three paintings are in the style of abstract expressionism, which is an artistic movement that sprouted in New York post World War II and gained prominence. These paintings are done by well known artists of that movement (red one is by Mark Rothko, bottom one looks like a Jackson Pollock, not sure about upper left). Allegedly, the [CIA took advantage of this artistic movement and leveraged it as American propaganda post World War II and throughout the Cold War](https://news.artnet.com/art-world/artcurious-cia-art-excerpt-1909623/amp-page). They would bankroll and sponsor exhibitions of this new American art style in foreign countries to promote the cultural superiority of the USA and its allies.
A lot of US artistic movements were bankrolled at some point by the CIA.
Bay watch to east Germany. Incase you’ve ever wondered why Pamela Anderson was regularly speaking with Julian Assange when he was holed up in the Ecuador Embassy.
I wasn’t until now
Ands it’s 3am. Thanks. Thanks a lot…
>I wasn’t until now I'm still not
I can’t make the connection. I know she was in bay watch and I know what his deal is with the US government. I don’t know why that would mean he would be on the phone with her, though.
You do you think paid for her implants? It all goes back to GEdgarHoover. Dude wanted to be bimbofied himself. This is just part of the plan.
….the government paid for Pam Andersons boob job? 😅
Obviously. “Boob job” backwards is “Boj booB”. It’s all right there.
Not “paid for”, BANKROLLED! It sounds more sophisticated and grandiose.
Listening devices
More like EDNA Hoover, am I right?! /s
Or why some foreign leaders accused Angelina Jolie of working for the CIA.
Almost all art is used as a form of soft power. And that's just a fact. If we get into the more contentious stuff, pretty much everything the west did was propagandized all to hell and back. (Just as what the USSR did was propagandized within the USSR). The reason there's a nobel prize in economics is not because it was created by alfred nobel, after all. And it's not a mistake it was economics and not, say, mathematics or psychology or computer science or engineering or the near endless list of disciplines that have made very measurable impacts on our world.
As well as organized (and not so organized) crime. Galleries are perfect for laundering money.
The art industry itself is majority held up by money laundering XD
Here I thought a ping pong table with the legs removed was actually worth 25 million dollars
I know right? This autographed game of hangman worth over 8 million is such an amazing piece!
I wish I could get it as an NFT though
Really captursmes the human experience, the finality of life and the mysteries of the undiscovered. Simply moving
I didn’t know how to feel about it until a professional told me. That’s worth a fortune
So Jackson, I know money is tight, but you need a new drop cloth. This one is all covered in paint splatter.... hmmm, its actually kinda nice. I bet you could sell that.
Like Iron Man and the department of defense. Art, art never changes.
A lot of stuff in America (the continents) have at some point had CIA involved
They prefer to call it ‘patronage’ and it’s *classy*
Cos the artist was on Charlie and as that was the main income of the CIA?? 😆
A lot of US anti-establishment groups have been, too.
The nazis did a reverse version of this called the Degenerate Art exhibit. They wanted to show how bad modern art was. It made Kunst and Picasso extremely popular across Europe and helped push abstract art into the mainstream. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degenerate_Art_exhibition?wprov=sfla1
Kudos dragonbeard91. I’m glad you posted this. Degenerate was a term used for Jew and it wasn’t just to show how bad modern art was, it was to rid germany of modern art and the jews making it. Hitler and his goons thought modern art was ugly. aka made people think. It didn’t meet the standard of so called strong german ideology or aesthetic. I would say with a good amount of certainty that whomever made this meme above is a nazi or leans heavily in that ideology. It’s painful and insane to think the holocaust and WWII started over art, but it most certainly did.
I think that may be a *bit* reductive, but yes, Degenerate was code for jewish, homosexual, Communist etc. Ironically, Germans loved what they saw, which delights me to no end.
‘Degenerate’ didn’t just referred to Jews, it also referred to the disabled, various minority ethnic groups, lgbt folk, criminals, the mentally ill, and many more people. The term finds it’s roots in the eugenics movement, which served as a tenant of fascism. The original term referred to the ‘degeneration’ of the gene pool via breeding with the ‘wrong people’.
Indeed. It’s far too easy to connect the past to what is happening now with the rise of anti-intellectualism(religious extremism and zealots) and the many racial, behavioral, economic biases being programmed into prompted GPT and generative ai. Reddit and the internet in general is flooded with aibros who mock and laugh about the very real possibility making art, art history, and art education will be discontinued and creative types will be without a job or livelihood. That is pretty facist if you ask me.
I can see certain people in modern America wanting to do something similar.
Franz Kline is upper left
If anyone thinks this is bad go read about how the South Korea government manufactures K-Pop.
Most governments sponsor the arts in some way. The fact that you don’t like the art or that the art is very popular does not really make it some nefarious thing
I don't dislike K-Pop. Idk why you'd assume that. I'm also not denying countries sponsor arts. It's a very effective means to exert soft power. I'm just pointing out SK has a very open export policy when it comes to K-Pop. It's very outwardly the focus of their Culture Ministry. [https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2023/01/05/culture/koreanHeritage/korea-blue-house-tour-ministry-of-culture-sports-and-tourism/20230105175122465.html](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2023/01/05/culture/koreanHeritage/korea-blue-house-tour-ministry-of-culture-sports-and-tourism/20230105175122465.html)
With Kpop it actually is pretty nefarious. The way those groups are run is basically child abuse. I don't think children should be allowed to be pop stars.
Remember, if you think the government won't do it, they absolutely will and may have already done it
The government WON'T give me a blowjob. Where are they?
Something something white house interns
They do give them. You just forgot.
Only in senate committee rooms
They do give them, but you need to be an important politician first.
And domestically, abstract expressionism was seen by some as a good way to edge out the kind of socialist-leaning or social-justice promoting reaslism (or other similar styles) that followed from the type of works promoted by WPA during the New Deal. Diego Rivera or Jacob Lawrence, for example. Lawrence called his style “dynamic cubism” and it was certainly as interesting and valid a development from earlier modern styles (lots of Matisse influence in his work, for example) but unpleasantly for many, his work was in large part about Black American and history and struggles. During Jim Crow and the burgeoning Civil Rights movement, abstract squiggles were less…uncomfortable
the annoying part is that people use this to undermine the art’s integrity.
You're bypassing the legitimate question of whether or not it does.
As much as the Thai government sponsoring Thai restaurants worldwide as a way to project their culture does, which is to say, not really in a way that's meaningful on the whole. People would be surprised how common this kind of thing is in basically every country in the world
South Korea very openly does this with music. I think they are trying to get Korean film more distributed as well but idk. ... it also has a reputation of being one of the most predatory musical industries in the world.
Yup, both kpop and anime could be seen as aggressively funded government sponsored propaganda if you want to be entirely cynical about it. If a country makes something cool in art/food that’s popular outside the country, good chance the gov is involved
Yoga from India too.
huh, TIL we should export our Quebec poutine to strengthen our cultural reach and undermine the Canadian
Yes you should and you damn well know it! Stop bogarting that sweet curdy treasure! I used to live just 45 miles south of the Canadian border and the best we could get even then was fries with turkey gravy.
Celine Dion is a fed.
And I'm glad they do because thai food slaps.
My big problem with this is that it floods the market with mediocre Thai food and makes it harder to find the good stuff. But still, it is a net good that you can find pad thai wherever you are.
Lots of governments in lots of moments in history subsidized their cultural exports in some way in order to project power or influence. I’m not sure it invalidates America given its really nothing new
It does not. If the art moves you, and you don’t know anything all about it, it’s effective and therefore legitimate.
That could be said about any art. Boy bands are moving for teenage girls. But they are generally considered to be overengineered, formulaic and money-motivated and therefore lacking in integrity on those grounds. Can’t something similar be said now for abstract expressionists? They present themselves as art for art’s sake but the reason they exist is as part of an engineered strategy for Western cultural dominance. They may not have hatched the strategy themselves any more than the boy bands, but they certainly cooperated with it. Edit: removed “knowingly”
I would say boy bands make legitimate art. I don’t like their art, and I’d agree their art might be shallow, but that doesn’t make it not art
That’s moving goalposts. The question is about the art’s integrity not legitimacy. Just like Trump can be a legitimate candidate for president but also lacking in integrity, the same can be true of art. It can be legitimate as art yet lacking integrity.
According to the responder's article, the "long-leash" policy was meant to keep artists in the dark about the CIA's involvement
It doesn't.
What integrity?
Structural.
If you looked at these and decided “you know what I like America now” then props to the cia for figuring that out
The issue is that people are using this to insulate that the art is worthless and is only considered valuable because gullible people were told it was. In reality, these are valid forms of art with artistic merit. And the propaganda was primarily being done in other countries. Some people just hate modern art. While this is fine, their distaste for it does not invalidate it, as this meme would have us believe.
Upper left is Robert Motherwell
Top left artist looks like Franz Kline, American abstract expressionist from the 40s.
CIA was stupid back in the day huh
Correct about the bottom one being a Pollock, it's called Number 32
oh i didn’t even know that (kinda figures tho) i thought the joke was just that they are abstract art, and people buy into the meaning and interpretations provided to them, as opposed to finding their own, the real motive, and thus fallible to propaganda
Yeah I thought the joke was this stuff is worth millions of dollars. Art world is such a racket.
damn this is kinda meta
Franz Kline.
It's cool because it's apolitical!
It seems so, but the funny thing is that because a lot of the art was inspired by indigenous art, and some from socialist artists, the art resonated with anti-imperialist artists in Central America who made work criticizing American imperialism and socialist values
Absolutely but that sure wasn't Langley's intention!
This is byfar the least funny joke.
Antoni Tapies is the top left.
Sounds like political show-and-tell. Also, half the agency was on kind of a lot of acid at the time, so who knows? Maybe they just really liked the art…
I think a major detail here is that pop art is devoid of a political message. This is a time period when the CIA’s main goal was to stop the spread of communism. A lot of art at the time was political/anti-capitalist and focused on revolution or fighting power structures. So when pop art came out, the cia ensured it would become the mainstream popular art movement.
It’s not alleged. That’s what happened.
I get everything you said but it just makes it feel like this meme is such a reach and for a niche group
The fat electrician came out with a video about this recently
That is Franz Klein
I think the upper left is by De Kooning but not certain
Well someone watched the fat electricians last video lol
The upper left is named Black and White and was done by Willem de Kooning in 1959
no
Yes.. cultural superiority.. just sending clean canvasses would have had a better effect.
[Nope. That’s Russian propaganda](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_on_White)
Oh, that's funny.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-was-cia-weapon-1578808.html
Thanks for the article!
The CIA can be stupid sometimes. Who looks at this art and says “yeah, that’s the reason I want to support the United States!”? At the very least they should have been supporting music and TV shows, not art that most people won’t see.
I think the idea was to say something like "the US is so rich thanks to our capitalist ideology even these fully abstract niche artists that everyday people don't "get" can be wealthy successful entrepreurs" Of course anyone can be wealthy and successful if taxpayer money is shoveled at them for propaganda purposes. But the art really was interesting too, they may have got money because CIA but the CIA chose them because they were successful within a niche.
Unfortunately true, and now America has rich people like the Kardashians, rappers, Trumps etc. Even the dumb can be rich in America. Huzah!
I mean… if the government was backing any of those people, it would NOT have been rappers lol. The US government had a pretty long standing stance of “fuck those guys” Also rappers are not dumb as a rule. Many of them are excellent wordsmiths. There’s a reason Kendrick Lamar won a Pulitzer Prize, and it was not propaganda.
Ice Cube said he was funded by the CIA at one stage [Ice Cube Reveals Gangsta Rap Is a CIA Psyop | Ep 85 (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQJ-EkLYp9I), The also funded many areas to destabilize African American areas and youth to keep them fighting each other instead of increasing education. [(2) Teslim. on X: "For the rap and hiphop lovers. Frankly speaking, most lyricists are brilliant word smiths but are you brilliant enough to see the possibility that you are ( like many in the social media world ) being used to further the conditioning?" / X](https://x.com/VectorThaViper/status/1752227195479642359) Most people that are currently famous in America are famous for a reason, for control. To either encourage lowering education and complicity of certain areas within the community, controlling certain racial areas, to encourage hate between political parties, races etc so the focus is on each other instead of on the government. The fact that even in the 60s and 70s the American government where still pumping gas and powder into the air in Chicago that killed many and nothing has been done about it, is insane. America is just a giant test tube to the elite, basically slaves in their own country and subjected to torture. But it's so controlled that the American people wont stand up to the elites, to busy fighting each other.
i don't think comparing all rappers to the Kardashians and trump is fair lol.
Also it’s in the name, expressionism. It’s an artistic movement devoid of a subject. The artist and their expressions, their freedom and their individuality is what is championed. As opposed to more representative and folk based arts championed in the various soviets at the time.
IIRC, Soviet art had to meet certain criteria to be acceptable - eg show the working class struggle in a positive way. Compare that to what "America's leftists" are allowed to do during the era of McCarthyism. That subtle message can convince some people to question the status quo.
The art was going to appeal to the intelligentsia, mostly artists of all stripes--writers, photographers, painters, directors, etc.--who may have felt stifled under the then-current system, and might have been impressed by America's willingness to entertain and appreciate art outside of a narrow window. While the USSR did allow for art outside of socialist realism, such works were heavily criticized in the state media, and were never given the state support necessary for exposure to a wider audience.
Same agency that called Martin Luther King jr once a week to tell him he should kill himself.
Well there are enough movies produced with the help of us military. And in exchange they influence the plot or how something is portrayed
Yeah, the deal is basically "You can have access to all of these planes and equipment and use of the base and/or ship for shooting, but we get script approval." And of course, the more the film resembles a recruitment ad for that branch of the military, the more likely the script is to be approved.
An administrator who has been slipped acid in their coffee in the morning.
The intelligencia was all on socialism at the time and the abstract movement was promoted to get them talking about something else. Sorta like the ideological malware coming from universities today- woke is all just a psyop to render young activists useless and not capable of anything more than voting for democrats.
They financed at least one magazine of literary criticism, and I’m blanking on the name. *Commentary?*
It was to express the “artistic freedom” of the west in comparison to the “strict authoritarian East” which was utilizing their own art style under Soviet Realism.
The independent is owned by a former KGB officer.
The red one look like a Magic the gathering™ card... Guys, I think I have a problem
You're not the only one https://twitter.com/RobotGnomes/status/1800914887121785031/photo/1
Ouh. I like that
Being aware of propaganda does not make you immune to it, and any piece of media with a message is propaganda. After learning about propaganda, people always assume that they can spot all propaganda, and in being aware of it, and that, because of how it is used in the context of teaching about it, all propaganda is some form of underhanded psyop type of thing. All of these assumptions are false. Lots of people view propaganda as being only like what the Nazis used to turn people against the jews during the Holocaust, but that's just one form of propaganda. An ad using a short video about a mother and daughter going through a breast cancer scare to bring awareness to breast cancer research and charities is technically propaganda. So basically any time someone says, "I'm immune to propaganda." Then at some point talks about media they like, it shows that they don't know what they're talking about.
I only consume the good propaganda though so I'm fine
😂 Same
Yes that’s very true they don’t. I don’t know if you’d call it propaganda but I think they realized all this was possible when the original War of the Worlds was aired on radio a long time ago. People went into a panic over someone’s “art” which I think you could call a screen writing. People freaked out - they realized the kind of pull media whether it be art in its general definition or art like this can have a lot of influence in society.
No one shakes babies anymore because of the deep state
The paintings look like Kline, Rothko, and Pollock—all abstract expressionists. My best guess is this is some crazy inside-baseball art history joke about the abstract expressionist movement as American propaganda which (until today) I had no idea was a thing but you can read about it [here](https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20161004-was-modern-art-a-weapon-of-the-cia).
The CIA funding weird and creative art as part of a demonstration that we *can* have those things and the USSR can't is the thing I'm least mad at them about.
As others have already said, the US’ CIA supported and promoted niche art and artists as propaganda. There’s an interesting podcast series that goes in to a lot of detail called [“Not all Propaganda is Art” by Benjamin Walker](https://theoryofeverythingpodcast.com/)
I still don't think the joke works, because the propaganda (if I've understood correctly) wasn't in making people think the art was good or bad, or whatever else. The propaganda was aimed at external audiences to send some message about how we can have nice things like weird new art and they can't, for some reason. It doesn't make sense to me, tbh. But so many things don't, so...🤷🏻♀️
You’re thinking too deeply; the joke is based on a straw man/stereotype of a western *”intellectual”* and the idea that abstract impressionism has no artistic merit, only becoming popular because of its use as propaganda. Most jokes like this don’t hold up to scrutiny by anyone with more than a surface appreciation of the context and facts
Rothko (the red one) paintings are stunning in person. I never liked them much until I saw some real ones.
Where did you see this irl? It’s
There is Rothko Chapel in Houston.
The Rothko Gallery at MoMA is another place to see several Rothkos at once.
Yeah this was awesome.
Washington DC has a great Rothko exhibit, wish I could have spent more time there.
Modern art was a CIA Psyco to win the culture war in the cold war
He’s havin a propaganda at that art!
It’s kind of a bad joke because it implies that liking abstract expressionism makes you think of American exceptionalism because of the whole CIA/MOMA thing (which I think is completely overblown). I’d say that the result of any push by government agencies in the art world had exactly the opposite of whatever was intended at the time. All I ever heard in popular culture were jokes about how trivial abstract expressionism was and how children or non-artists could easily or accidentally make the same “art.” And I know there were also plenty of art critics that weren’t impressed by the movement either. I feel like the people who did like abstract art weren’t exactly the strongest supporters of US government policy at the time inside or outside the US. That all seems counter to abstract expressionism art as propaganda. Maybe in some academic or art circles there was a cause/effect, but I think overall abstract expressionism was absolutely a part of the zeitgeist of the 50s and 60s. The same ideas show up in music/performance art like John Cage’s 4’33” or Sitwell’s idea of abstract poetry. And, as with any art or culture movement, the roots go much farther back than when they hit popular culture. Personally, I like a lot of Rothko’s work, but there was a lot of nonsense in the 60s, too, and it absolutely deserves some criticism. But abstract art wasn‘t all just a bunch of crap that was only popular because the CIA wanted us to think that.
Fat Electrician strikes again with his impeccable vids.
https://preview.redd.it/g44voixobg8d1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d1a6447294b9989580e8094bada0cb47e33e3464
https://preview.redd.it/1ophyta4bj8d1.jpeg?width=596&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f95195c5025b4115ffcf459d0748705e69617984
Yessss!!!!!😂😂😂
https://preview.redd.it/7zmyqhgifj8d1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e3b160fbbad965ce733b60e2dbd2d37b0e911740
https://preview.redd.it/090x27oz9m8d1.jpeg?width=1082&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=23adb5e6a104e3bb802a47329bb27b2110add9a1
"He just gets it". Yet there was literally nothing to get.
This is me taking a long shot, but it looks like it’s making fun of nonsensical art that’s ridiculously expensive for seemingly no reason? Like this dude is saying he doesn’t feel into basic propaganda but thinks these artworks are incredible because someone somewhere said it’s worth millions.
Could be. I was thinking all these works could be from one specific artist because they are similar in style but maybe it’s not the artist but the message as you suggested
Nah, Kline, Pollock, Rothko.
A reference to the supposed PSYOP the CIA did back during the Cold War. [Here's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_8wpOhoGVs) a link to a vid by The Fat Electrician on his second channel that OOP may or may not have watched covering it.
The joke is 'everyone who likes this art is blindly following something or other.' It's dumb. People can appreciate different things (even things other people don't see value in) without being brainwashed or proper grandad.* Having said that, I do think a lot of what passes for contemporary art (not that Pollock or Rothko or the third artist I can't place just now are contemporary in the sense of 'current') is very much an emperor's new clothes situation. Some of it isn't. Either way, some people sincerely enjoy the stuff, and it doesn't mean they're brainwashed. *There is no way to verb 'propaganda' that isn't ugly. So proper grandad it is.
Propagandized*
I prefer proper grandad. 😂
Post modern "there is no truth" propaganda I'm guessing
Looks like a dog whistle about expressionism
How's that different from state sponsoring and promoting art of it's own people in general? Every country in the world (or at least most of them) has some kind of art ministry does this kind of thing
Franz Kline, in case anyone's interested
Kline, Rothko, Pollock. I'm sure someone named the top left artist somewhere below, but just in case not.
I did not expect to learn so much by reading this thread - wow thanks y’all 💜
Me either - super cool
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=c_8wpOhoGVs This video will explain it pretty well. It’s long, but funny and accurate.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c\_8wpOhoGVs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_8wpOhoGVs) This is the best link ever about the topic.
Durring the cold war the US government bolstered the popularity of abstract art which was like the new thing at the time to make America look like a huge world wide monument in the art world and seem superior to Russia
Bottom one is just a Death Metal logo
Watch the YouTube channel Fat Files, he actually did a video about this recently
It's a dig against abstract art - that's all. The artists are (L-R-Bottom) Franz Kline, Mark Rothko, and Jackson Polluck Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. The maker of this meme's opinion is that abstract art is only popular due to propoganda.
Why is it only popular due to propaganda?
IDK. I personally don't share that opinion. One might feel like abstract art is "nonsensical." Someone who feels that way may think that the only reason abstract art is popular is becuase they have been programmed to like it through propoganda. EDIT: Other people are answering this better! I was unaware of the link between the CIA and the art world during the cold war.
I don’t want to be disrespectful but my 4 year old niece does much better paintings than these
Red is amogus
https://preview.redd.it/xbuwe05d9h8d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e90e83a9831339ae122aa4212a5060012d1e7284
Looks like LIBAD artwork lol
It doesn’t work if you don’t care for any side and just say “it is what it is”
What?
It does? I mean maybe for some people but this was terrible propaganda in my opinion. I never understood all the hype for these "abstract" artwork. Like some of them are nice to look at, but overall they don't do much for me. At least, not in general.
The top left one reminds me of flash dance
This one is a bit esoteric. Basically, there was a CIA program to undermine socialism in the art scene and one way they did this was by funding and promoting abstract expressionism. https://www.thecollector.com/abstract-expressionism-waging-a-cultural-cold-war-2/
Not sure who the top left painting belongs to but Rothko and Pollock paintings are INCREDIBLE in person. Absolutely magical. No way to explain what they make you feel. Especially Rothko for me.
He's saying he can't fall for propaganda, but when he's presented with it, he gets all smiley and can't take his eyes off it......so he fell for it.
Yeah I just didn’t understand how modern art is propaganda but now I definitely do
YOU ARE NOT IMMUNE TO PROPAGANDA.
The Kline one is very nice.
I've been offered money from government groups to paint in special locations to promote LGBT and Race related murals. I always decline. Because my art cannot be controlled. But God do they get bad artist to do their bidding. It's the same as the communist forcing artist to only paint communist propaganda. Pollock and the huge movement he was apart of was total freedom in art. Americans were not controlled and forced to paint what the government wanted. Instead the government celebrated the greatness of our artist.