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

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

#161

Post by modo_mario »

estearum wrote: post #139
modo_mario wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Basically when people stopped only drawing religious art and portraits of nobles. We drew vastly more art. The kind you describe was just more likely to be preserved as the institutions they were on about and the buildings they resided in persisted.

Surely people created a lot more art, but you're eliding the dynamic of professionalism. Art is ludicrously labor-intensive and so the vast majority of professional art (i.e. most art worth saving) would have been done for rich people.

I am indeed eliding the dynamic of professionalism. I don't think it has to be "ludicrously" labour intensive and I think "professional art" is overvalued and an absolute minority of all art ever created.

It just so happens that a lot of the modern/contemporary art talked about is mostly the domain of professional art (and examples that say otherwise are often not even thought of as such like hippy tie dye clothing.)

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

#162

Post by rebolek »

anal_reactor wrote: post #144
MachineMan wrote: post #130

Old news. Modern art is Antiart made to destroy European culture and replace it for the global debauchery of Americana. Harmful to the soul, void of talent, turning western civilization from master painters to banana + duct tape. EDIT: Saachi works similar to the way boy and girl bands are created. They are not artists, but underpaid unknowns whose works are packaged, productized, propped up, marketed and sold like K…

Agree. I felt like I wasn't interested in art. I just didn't like it. Turns out, it's not a "me" problem, it's an "art" problem. Once I got involved in the furry community I discovered how beautiful art can be. My whole house is full of furry artworks, and I'm commissioning more. Those artists create things that are fun, novel, original. As opposed to "abstract New York no. 41715". But the deeper problem is that an a…

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I would prefer "abstract New York no. 41715" to anything remotely connected to furries.

And that's fine, people have different tastes, there's nothing wrong with it.

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

#163

Post by huurtehoog »

zombot wrote: post #118
coldtea wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. But those making the claim are not talking about that. They're talking about the post 50s abstract expressionism and pop art movements. Just because it says "modern art" doesn't mean it refers to any and all modern art, much less 19th century art or say cubism or dada.

The art of arbitrarily redefining existing terms will never die out.

Cognition is naming thing and counting things.

Or as Aristotle would say, start with definitions.

I really do not get arguing about semantics. It is all arbitrary. You need to agree on what is meant to even intend on having a conversation.

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

#164

Post by KellyCriterion »

brodo wrote: post #103
ivan_gammel wrote: post #85

Not the first time when the Default Country thinks they invented everything. The title is almost comical. Modern art, as everyone should know, started in 1860s in Europe inspired by technological advances, globalization of trade and cultural exchange. Japanese art made huge blast, photography pushed to seek new forms of expression, social progress demanded new messages and new images. We had impressionism, post-impre…

Overall a great point, but I have a nit-pick: > Modern art, as everyone should know, started in 1860s in Europe As someone who is active in the German art scene, the understanding is not that clear-cut. Modern art, as I learned it, is "art in the modern period". So everything after the middle ages. Basically when people stopped only drawing religious art and portraits of nobles. What started in the 1860s is "modernis…

- contemporary art -

Now I have to nitpick, too too :-)

According to my understanding on the usage of "contemporary art", this is a "time relative term", meaning it describes usually "what was usually/common around a given time/period"?

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

#165

Post by Cordiali »

OroPla wrote: post #127
zombot wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The art of arbitrarily redefining existing terms will never die out.

I agree that it is incredibly stupid to call something from 1870 "modern". The word modern has a a clear meaning of "just now" / "contemporary". Not two hundred years ago. It shouldn't be attached to anything that can age out of this meaning.

Meanwhile historians are out there, regarding things from 500 years ago as modern.

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

#166

Post by pringk02 »

anal_reactor wrote: post #144
MachineMan wrote: post #130

Old news. Modern art is Antiart made to destroy European culture and replace it for the global debauchery of Americana. Harmful to the soul, void of talent, turning western civilization from master painters to banana + duct tape. EDIT: Saachi works similar to the way boy and girl bands are created. They are not artists, but underpaid unknowns whose works are packaged, productized, propped up, marketed and sold like K…

Agree. I felt like I wasn't interested in art. I just didn't like it. Turns out, it's not a "me" problem, it's an "art" problem. Once I got involved in the furry community I discovered how beautiful art can be. My whole house is full of furry artworks, and I'm commissioning more. Those artists create things that are fun, novel, original. As opposed to "abstract New York no. 41715". But the deeper problem is that an a…

Out of curiosity, can you link to a publicly available furry work to help someone curious get into it? And help to know what to look for to appreciate it.

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

#167

Post by CGMthrowaway »

modo_mario wrote: post #141
MachineMan wrote: post #130

Old news. Modern art is Antiart made to destroy European culture and replace it for the global debauchery of Americana. Harmful to the soul, void of talent, turning western civilization from master painters to banana + duct tape. EDIT: Saachi works similar to the way boy and girl bands are created. They are not artists, but underpaid unknowns whose works are packaged, productized, propped up, marketed and sold like K…

Maybe it's just semantics but: I wouldn't use the nomer americana which is a grouping of styles itself becoming less comon. Secondly I wouldn't ascribe intentionality to all if it. That's what made it so dangerous and imo destructive. It self-propagates. I saw people in the arts in turn instilling the idea that all these modern greats in some slightly different way pushed the boundaries with their slightly new thing…

>It self-propagates

Part of the design spec of the psyop, perhaps

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

#168

Post by CGMthrowaway »

jonnybgood wrote: post #146
MachineMan wrote: post #130

Old news. Modern art is Antiart made to destroy European culture and replace it for the global debauchery of Americana. Harmful to the soul, void of talent, turning western civilization from master painters to banana + duct tape. EDIT: Saachi works similar to the way boy and girl bands are created. They are not artists, but underpaid unknowns whose works are packaged, productized, propped up, marketed and sold like K…

Most of greatest works of modern art are European. The term “modern art” is in reference to an era that we are no longer in. You have a strong opinion. I would highly implore you to learn more about art history and why art is the way it is today. You’ll learn why banana and duct tape is why it is. What makes an art work museum worthy? It’s very rewarding to have that insight.

>Most of greatest works of modern art are European

Convincing post-war europe that they are outside the influence of the US was also a great psyop

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

#169

Post by nemo »

gizajob wrote: post #73

The CIA didn’t invent the camera which was really the trigger for the arrival of modern art and the abandonment of representation everywhere in the world. At the same time though, if you go somewhere like the Guggenheim in Bilbao, upon leaving that fantastic building it does occur to you that the whole thing is an outpost for American artistic culture, or if you want to frame it another way, American cultural imperia…

"the abandonment of representation everywhere in the world"

Worth checking out Socialist Realism, both the thing that motivated the CIA to fund and promote non-representative art and help develop it into a fad, and also a large corpus of representative art that existed when you imagine it did not (there's many others besides, non-representative art has always been a small niche relative to all art produced which is primarily abstract or representative once you start to look outside galleries and museums).

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

#170

Post by CGMthrowaway »

polnoner wrote: post #149
MachineMan wrote: post #130

Old news. Modern art is Antiart made to destroy European culture and replace it for the global debauchery of Americana. Harmful to the soul, void of talent, turning western civilization from master painters to banana + duct tape. EDIT: Saachi works similar to the way boy and girl bands are created. They are not artists, but underpaid unknowns whose works are packaged, productized, propped up, marketed and sold like K…

This is nonsense. Modern art is modern art because by the early 20th century, it was hard to do anything original in something resembling a traditional style. It is the same reason for serial/12 tone music. Arnold Schoenberg wasn't a psyop. If anything it is a comment on the lack of modern cultural sophistication and the way people relate to the world in terms of sensationalist narrative for click optimization.

> It is the same reason for serial/12 tone music

I don't see ANY dearth of originality in American 12-tone music during the cold war. What are you meaning by this?

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