Was modern art a CIA psy-op? (2020)

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.

Incredible to believe the CIA has more sway over artistic movements than actual artists.

Related. Others?

Was modern art a CIA psy-op? (2020) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36155204 - June 2023 (332 comments)

Was Modern Art Really a CIA Psy-Op? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23525366 - June 2020 (7 comments)

Also:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42987770 (Feb 2025)

Did John Steinbeck Spy for the CIA? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20587547 - Aug 2019 (33 comments)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10462602 (Oct 2015)

Literary Magazines for Socialists Funded by the CIA, Ranked - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10116113 - Aug 2015 (133 comments)

Oh man, I just listened to an episode of Decoder Ring about why making classical realist sculptures in the US is a challenge. It gives some interesting context about the rejection of realism in the post-war West:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/we-are-monumentally-ba...

Far more things/movements are orchestrated than are organic. This is to me one of the most surprising things I have learned as I got older.

“educate, inspire, and strengthen the hearts and wills of free men.”

Funny how times have changed and more or less everyone on every side is fighting for the strength and survival of their own groupthink and little more.

I don’t know if this is a reaction to AI or something, but recently I’ve only been interested in classical/realism art. I just can’t do abstract cubes anymore. The default wallpaper of windows 11 is a perfect example - I hate it. Give me a wallpaper of some painting from the Renaissance.

Sounds like modern art was the kpop of its era.

(2020)

Some previous discussion:

2023 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36155204

Sounds like it was more about spreading American culture as part of the Cold War. This feels a lot more benign compared to Modernist architecture which seems to have fascist tendencies what with Le Corbusier and Philip Johnson being literal Nazi sympathizers.

lol i think the CIA is nowhere near competent enough to even consider that idea.

Just gonna leave this here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Endowment_for_the_Art...

Juxtaposed with: https://youtu.be/8adu_rSMdXM?si=GZSeKWodp3ivFZyo

Your tax dollars, hard at work!

And here I was thinking any psyop was necessarily bad.

Betteridge’s law prevails. A fun read, but not as fun as the title suggests.

tl;dr Modern art existed before the CIA and even CIA predecessors did not originate it, but they did push it abroad to show that America is great because we put up with modern art made by socialists depite most americans disliking both the art and the artists

Is calling everything a Psy-Op a Psy-Op?

More likely it was a money laundering operation disguised as a psyop.