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

I am reluctant to believe stories like "The CIA created modern art", as it is just a single part, although a very influential part, of the movement.

I say this as somebody who is very cautious about believing anything and am quick to call things (probably incorrectly) propaganda or disseminated by paid actors.

I thought this was well known. Like, the Men In Black movies literally have a scene lampshading this.

They realize the majority of their beliefs already existed before they were born and will continue on after they're dead. They have nothing to add to the conversation while they are too busy fighting. They turn their focus to developing their ideas peacefully and let their subcultures flourish once again.

This isn't the first cycle and won't be the last. The last major cycle was in the 20th century due to broadcast media. I think people sometimes forget how relatively young the internet is.

The morality in it comes from your motivation and methods. Secretly giving piles of money to the weirdos you successfully identify as being the leaders of artistic movements to amplify those movements can't be all that bad.

The question of the day is if you were the CIA trying to do the same thing today, who and what would you fund?

  - grocery stores
  - NASA
  - rock music
  - psychedelics and hippies
  - a strong middle class
  - affordable vehicles and the highway system
  - Hollywood movies
  - Books

That said, the article is still interesting and I wouldn't ignore it just because the dumb title.

Hard to imagine today because this kind of weird art comes from just about everywhere with a few exceptions now.

Interesting to read about how it actually was the work of a few elite institutions that made this happen. Agreed the CIA angle is a bit weak, to me it's more a story about the Rockefellers and their compatriots who funded this stuff.

It is interesting they were taunting the Soviets by saying "look our artists are so free even we dont know wtf they are making but we support them!" rather than "look how amazing modern art is" lol