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Comment by dataviz1000 | Hacker News Reader

CIA funding helped keep Abstract Expressionist artists like Jackson Pollock afloat, serving as propaganda for freedom of expression and individualism in contrast to Soviet collectivism.

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Fellow readers whose interests are piqued by this comment: this is apparently true. This book [1] talks about it in greater depth. From Wikipedia:

> [The author] describes the growth of the Abstract Expressionist art movement, and its frequent showcasing in New York's Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), as largely a CIA-sponsored operation [...] Since many abstract expressionist painters and sculptors were anarchistic, and strongly anti-CIA, a "long leash" policy was adopted that "kept CIA operatives at a remove of two or three degrees from the artists and art exhibitions—sometimes even more—so that they could not be linked to any furtive governmental bankrolling."

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Paid_the_Piper%3F

That was because Russia was creating actual art and laughing at the media America produced.

The USSR was selling art to fund the KGB. Stone glass houses.

Well that’s exactly the opposite situation isn’t it, funding their intelligence with art people were willing to pay for

Vs art that needed to be paid for by intelligence

Never would have thought that art and intelligence agencies have so much synergy tbh.

Russia has exceptional art education and the best art school in the world. I am proud as an American that we weaponized shitty art as a cultural weapon (Pollock bukkake)

What art school do you mean?

St. Petersburg Institute for Painting, Sculpture and Architecture

Is this ironic or did you inadvertently omit a word

Within the former USSR, there is very, very little demand today for the socialist-realist works produced during the Stalin era. No one goes to see museum exhibitions of the visual art except as a historical oddity, and the doctrinaire literature of that time is rotting unread in myriad provincial libraries. Its own market rejected it. Meanwhile, some of the Western abstract expressionists still appeal to a decent audience of art lovers.

This narrative has been popularized all over social media for the last couple years.

Obviously it's true and not a surprise to anyone familiar with the history. But no one is asking more complex questions: why is it being pushed by algorithms and networks ultimately controlled by the same powers? Is it a "limited hangout"? Well poisoning? What does the "CIA" gain from revealing a sliver of its past activities and discrediting (both directly and by insinuation) a large number of radical artists and thinkers?

One idea - these days there are many MANY more players using the same strategy - maybe the CIA wants us to be aware of the technique to limit its effectiveness.

Not a direct response to your question; I figure you or others reading this may be interested in the thoughts of the host of The War on Beauty (best found on youtube).

My brain tingles when I hear "three letter letter agency did X"

But my take on the question: "why is it being pushed by algorithms" is that it is a property of the medium of "algorithmic feeds".

YT, shorts, etc. are a great medium for attention grabbing in a way that is district from TV. Broadcast TV caters to the "average" viewer, ex. Sienfeld, Johnny Carson show. "Algorithmic TV" caters to specialized viewers. Fringe ideas and science, "the truth about X". The crown prince of "algorithmic TV" (IMO of course) is Joe Rogan. For every niche quest he has on, there's many more YT channels on that topic. Weird history, ancient aliens, psychedelics.

So I don't really think the "algorithms" are controlled, rather they "algorithm" elevate weird ideas more than other mediums.

As the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal showed, the social network algorithms can be used to send political messages according to your psychological profile. (Political messages shown to you, can be different from political messages shown to your neighbor).

Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign used the harvested data to build psychographic profiles, determining users' personality traits based on their Facebook activity. The campaign team used this information as a micro-targeting technique, displaying customized messages about Trump to different US voters on various digital platforms. Ads were segmented into different categories, mainly based on whether individuals were Trump supporters or potential swing votes. As described by Cambridge Analytica's CEO, the key was to identify those who might be enticed to vote for their client or be discouraged to vote for their opponent. Supporters of Trump received triumphant visuals of him, as well as information regarding polling stations. Swing voters were instead often shown images of Trump's more notable supporters and negative graphics or ideas about his opponent, Hillary Clinton. For example, the collected data was specifically used by "Make America Number 1 Super PAC" to attack Clinton through constructed advertisements that accused Clinton of corruption as a way of propping up Trump as a better candidate for the presidency

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook%E2%80%93Cambridge_Ana...

Except that was the whole problem with the CCP having hooks into TikTok. It's thing to be "oh it's just the algorithm", but if China's involved, they're gonna have a finger on the scale, but then when it's up to the US, we're supposed to think that no one's not messing with the algorithm to do... something? It's a comforting belief to think that there's some grand master plan and we're not all out here doing the best we can with what we've got and it's all up to random chance, but at the level where there is YouTube/Instagram/TikTok, it's hard to believe that there's no one guiding the algorithm for some purpose that isn't just make more money. Or maybe money is it and it's all an application of Goodhart's law.

Simple enough mechanism used that everyday people on YouTube can grasp, vague nationalistic bend, and plenty of people who don’t know about it, all makes great YouTube clickthrough rates.

I like your comment, though.

> CIA funding helped keep Abstract Expressionist artists like Jackson Pollock afloat

No.

I swear CIA exploits go through so many games of telephone, that reality is whatever people want by the end.

The CIA was involved in including artists like Pollock in the 60s in the MoMA, by then he was well established.

The aim of the CIA was to use american art in juxtaposition to USSR propaganda. Freedom and individualism vs the boring state propaganda of russian workers that people saw leave the iron curtain.

This would be similar to now a days helping american movies get through Chinese censors or to win the Cannes award to showcase how good hollywood and america is. You still need to make the 200 million blockbuster first before the CIA uses their influence.

The myth also perpetuates the idea that modern and contemporary art is basically worthless and that its only valuable because of psyop campaigns from "them" (make it the cia, rich money laundering, sometimes weird antisemetic things take your pick), when in reality Pollock and Rothko were incredibly talented artists and their art has endured well after the CIA ended its operation

The art may have been created independently, but rich money laundering is the main reason why that art is considered valuable. Remember that this is a movement created in NYC, where they perfected the connection between strange new art forms and billionaire collections of paintings valued into the several million dollars.

> The art may have been created independently, but rich money laundering is the main reason why that art is considered valuable.

Again, no.

The art is valuable because of many compounding reasons. The interest of rich families, like Guggenheim in New York, creating the modern system of galleries and museums certainly affected the price. But the interest in art of women like Peggy Guggenheim was genuine. She staked huge amount of money in rescuing art from europe during the 30s and 40s for example. That was not a money making scheme, they lost millions on it.

Modern schemes to stake value in art have more to do with Freeports and keeping valuable art outside of taxing jurisdiction. Specially in liquid markets that can be sold in auction and generate cash when needed.

Other schemes are gallery or collectors who have a huge amount of work by one artist and then inflate the price in auction, which is the only visible price marker, to inflate their own collection. There is a famous Warhol collector, who has a shit ton of stuff and will overpay in auction to then sell his own collection privately for the inflated auction price.

Art is much more of a taste signifier than a tax or investment opportunity. There are obviously no downsides for rich people to sell overpriced assets to each other, but the truth is that people will want a Caravaggio or a Rothko in their house and will pay millions for it. With no intention to ever sell them and paying sticker price so no tax breaks at all.

You're just confirming it.

You are correct in the sense that CIA was absolutely using art as a propoganda tool and highlighting how US has such a strong artistic foundation. But that doesn't mean they were personally financially keeping Pollock afloat because it somewhat implies that Pollock is a product of CIA funding when in reality, CIA used Pollock's work as an asset in their cold war.

Yes, in a similar way to how RATM’s music was used in Guantanamo.

We can never be sure now can we? I mean, there are great artists who aren't famous and struggle and remain unknown, and then there are artists (talented or otherwise) who either know (or have backers that know) how to play the game to earn fame and / or make a good living. Talented or not, would he have been famous and successful without the CIA propaganda? I remember reading about some famous painter who used to make his intern help him with client commissioned works, but when the clients themselves came to review it, he would make sure they never saw the interns and would pretend to have painted the whole thing himself.

Yes, of course we can never be sure, that's why we cannot say CIA bankrolled Pollock since for that we need to be sure of what happened. We also cannot ignore his actual art work and personality regardless of the "he only famous cuz cia" thesis.

The problem with this approach is that the Russian Constructivists and their dealers were very successful in the Soviet Union.

https://www.thecollector.com/what-is-russian-constructivism/

Why is that a problem? Two schools can both produce good work, and still illustrate a contrast.

If a muscular Soviet art scene embarrassed the Americans into juicing up their own art scene, isn’t that good and healthy for both?

I meant the CIA’s approach to destabilizing the Soviet Union through artistic expression. Definitely good for the Art World.

Under Lenin sure. Not so much under Stalin, though. He had old fashioned tastes and disliked abstract art. He preferred "socialist realism" which featured cheesy pictures of happy peasants and tractor drivers working to build Communism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_realism

That could be I don’t know much history and my school never offered classes to study Soviet Realism unlike Russian Constructivism.

Nothing says rugged individualism like some good-old state-sponsored abstract art.

Damn, now I'm going to see every Pollock image as some sort of encrypted data where it just looks random because you don't have the key.

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