Modern Art Used As CIA Weapon

[BFT3K]

Another story proving once again, that truth is stranger than fiction...

Modern art was CIA 'weapon'



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.

Story continues here...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...n-1578808.html

[Rochard]

Nothing surprises me. It's mind blowing that thirty years ago we did everything to Russia look bad, but now we support India going to Mars.

[JockoHomo]

The USA is a fucked up place indeed.

[JFK]

So was Pollock trippin balls whe he did most of his work ?

[BFT3K]

Originally Posted by JFK

So was Pollock trippin balls whe he did most of his work ?

Looks like he was "drippin" more than he was "trippin".

Drippin paint on the canvas that is.

[bhutocracy]

What I like about this is it's total commitment to freedom of expression. The CIA funding near communist sympathizers to express exactly what they want at the expense of their own philistine masses to prove the supremacy of freedom of expression.

[wehateporn]

In the UK at the moment they give us happy songs on the radio and nice positive stories about the economy, there is a 'Cheer Them Up' agenda at work, they had made us so miserable before that it backfired and we stopped their war on Syria

[adendreams]

Originally Posted by BFT3K

this painting would likely sell for more than 100 Million Dollars if sold today

http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/jack...number-9a-1948

[nico-t]

1947:
"Dismayed at the appeal communism still had for many intellectuals and artists in the West, the new agency set up a division, the Propaganda Assets Inventory, which at its peak could influence more than 800 newspapers, magazines and public information organisations. They joked that it was like a Wurlitzer jukebox: when the CIA pushed a button it could hear whatever tune it wanted playing across the world."

Just imagine how this has evolved to 2013... yet people still believe everything they hear on the news.

[_Richard_]

Originally Posted by nico-t

1947:
Just imagine how this has evolved to 2013... yet people still believe everything they hear on the news.

this is the overall point of everything

but you can lead a horse to water.

[adendreams]

Originally Posted by nico-t

1947:

Just imagine how this has evolved to 2013... yet people still believe everything they hear on the news.

It hasn't evolved but rather crumbled. I suspect the CIA still has long tentacles, and may be able to plant stories in Fox News or the WSJ - but the days of them having any tangible sway over pop culture are of a bygone era.

Hilarious to think that that they could be the single biggest driving force behind a Pollack painting being worth 100 Mil - awesome.

[oppoten]

Seems like there's a lot of parallels with social media.

[adendreams]

Originally Posted by oppoten

Seems like there's a lot of parallels with social media.

Not.

Social Media is where they lost all grip.


but they got the buzz going and this baby sold for 140 Million:

[ilnjscb]

Yet if this didn't have a credible citation, people would be posting tinfoil hats.. Shit like this makes me worry about all the other stuff.

[ajapub]

Originally Posted by ilnjscb

Yet if this didn't have a credible citation, people would be posting tinfoil hats.. Shit like this makes me worry about all the other stuff.

If you went strictly by statistics, then the percentages may not look good, but consider that there are more people "awake" now than at any time in widely recorded history. All it takes is enough to trigger a critical mass... so have hope

Here's a relevant quote that emphasizes this quite well:

"[The] major world powers, new and old, also face a novel reality: while the lethality of their military might is greater than ever, their capacity to impose control over the politically awakened masses of the world is at a historic low. To put it bluntly: in earlier times, it was easier to control one million people than to physically kill one million people; today, it is infinitely easier to kill one million people than to control one million people."

-Zbigniew Brzezinski

[Mutt]

Interesting story but I don't understand, I don't remember there being any question that America was awash in cultural freedom in the 50s and 60s, in mainstream and avant-garde and counter culture - you had the black American jazz scene, the beatnik scene, Jack Kerouac, authors like Truman Capote, off Broadway playwrights, rock and roll, Elvis, the beginning of the sexual revolution, great American films, smart films unlike today and on and on.

Why was modern art so important? It appeals to a very small number of people in every country, the rich intellectuals.

The Soviets were sending their intellectuals to gulags, the Red Army Choir was their most famous musical artists, the Bolshoi Ballet a classical ballet company, and that circus of theirs where bears were cruelly trained to ride bicyles. Who would think there was any cultural war that needed to be fought against the dreariest coldest empire ever created.

Hell, it's 2013, I see the Russian cam girls on MFC, they are still living in drab depressing apartments with wallpaper from the 1930s.

People are still sheep, with enough money and control of media outlets you could make anything popular with the masses.

I hope one day that the greatest irony ever is revealed, that the entire conspiracy kook industry is a CIA work.