• JohnBrownNote [comrade/them, des/pair]@hexbear.net
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    8 months ago

    fuck the cia fuck all their artists and fuck defending this garbage.

    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.

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

    • RyanGosling [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      8 months ago

      It’s really funny whenever this is brought up. Like okay, the cia tried pushing a bunch of dumb art styles. Who cares? What effect did they have on society? Some big canvas with a black square on it has done 0 damage on the world compared to the countless war and crime movies normalizing brutalization against the “undesirables.”

      Oh boo hoo some asshole laundered his money with a Picasso. Who gives a shit. They launder much more through shell companies and tax loopholes. Stop crying. I don’t see you deleting your social media and touching grass since the feds invented the internet and infiltrate everything.

      Or better yet, if you seethe over dumb abstract art because MUH CIA!!! then I better see you seething over jazz music and punk rock for being devil imperialist music since they diverted from the norms

      • JohnBrownNote [comrade/them, des/pair]@hexbear.net
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        8 months ago

        uh i’m not here to rag on the cia for crimes against culture, i’m here to rag on the “art community” being so up their own ass that they lost the ability to summarily dismiss worthless meaningless garbage for being worthless meaningless garbage. bringing up the cia part of it is to discredit the “movement”.

        Or better yet, if you seethe over dumb abstract art because MUH CIA!!! then I better see you seething over jazz music and punk rock for being devil imperialist music since they diverted from the norms

        warf-wtf

        • RyanGosling [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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          8 months ago

          Most Abstract art is literally just a niche for rich people. No one cares about it beyond some millionaires. You don’t hear the end about the classical painters because that’s what society has declared to be Good Art. The “discourse” surrounding abstract, avant-garde crap is just between people who sip wine all day whose opinions are virtually worthless and silly, but what’s even more Silly is getting your pants in a knot over some imaginary movement and “defense” no one cares about

          • JohnBrownNote [comrade/them, des/pair]@hexbear.net
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            8 months ago

            Most Abstract art is literally just a niche for rich people.

            i considered and then declined to edit my previous comment to add something about the absurdity of comparing the bougiest bourgeois art with jazz and punk.

            getting your pants in a knot over some imaginary movement and “defense” no one cares about

            art heads defend it and try to legitimize it. there are comments on this post complaining about allegedly reactionary left pushback against the bullshit.

            also that’s “movement” in the art movement sense, not like, the peoples front of whatever

            • RyanGosling [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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              8 months ago

              Again, “art heads” is just some random niche group. Society doesn’t care about abstract, modern art and it’s often the butt of jokes for most people. Getting upset because some guy thinks abstract art is “real art” because you think it’s “meaningless” is pointless because you’re just acting like it’s some widespread phenomenon. I hate most modern art but I don’t think that’s a reactionary stance unlike literally getting upset over a picture of a square because it’s “not real art”

              • JohnBrownNote [comrade/them, des/pair]@hexbear.net
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                8 months ago

                i spend approximately zero minutes of my life thinking about it outside of a day or two every few years when someone else brings it up. the rest is just refusing to come to bed because someone is wrong on the internet ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

          • You don’t hear the end about the classical painters because that’s what society has declared to be Good Art.

            What you think is “society” was actually art traders and rich people from hundreds of years ago, as opposed to less than a hundred years ago. Doesn’t mean that the works and the artists should be dismissed because of the material conditions of the time, but rather taken into account when appreciating said art.

            • RyanGosling [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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              8 months ago

              The person im replying to suggests the need to “push back” against a supposed “movement” or mass defense of abstract art. I’m not trashing on traditional art, just saying that it “pushing back” against abstract art is entirely pointless because society doesn’t care about it enough for it be meaningful in any way.

    • christian [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      8 months ago

      The incident like twenty years ago where someone discovered a “lost” Pollock painting and there were heated arguments between historians over whether it was a fake was so funny to me. I don’t have any background in art history myself so take this with a grain of salt, but when I looked at it I saw a bunch of paint splotches, which leads me to believe it was authentic.

    • Dolores [love/loves]@hexbear.net
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      8 months ago

      the key word in “American Abstract Expressionist” is American, the content was unimportant beyond ‘not explicitly pro-soviet’. Abstract art is not reactionary or garbage