Editing Artistic revolution (section)

== The CIA and Abstract Expressionism ==

Their initial break with realism into an exploration of light, color and the nature of paint was brought to an ultimate conclusion by the [[Abstract Expressionists|abstract expressionists]] who broke away from recognizable content of any kind into works of pure shape, color and [[painterliness]] which emerged at the end of the Second World War.  At first thought of{{By whom|date=November 2022}} as primitive, inept works - as in "my four year old could do that - these works were misunderstood and neglected until given critical and support by the rise of art journalists and critics who championed their work in the 1940s and 50s, expressing the power of such work in aesthetic terms the artists themselves seldom used, or even understood.  [[Jackson Pollock]] who pioneered [[Action painting|splatter painting]], dispensing with a paint brush altogether, soon became lionized as the angry young man in a large spread in [[Life (magazine)|''Life'' magazine]].

In fact, in a deliberate, secret and successful effort to separate artistic revolutions from political ones, abstract expressionists like Pollock, [[Robert Motherwell]], [[Willem de Kooning]] and [[Mark Rothko]], while seemingly difficult, pathbreaking artists, were in fact secretly supported for twenty years by the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] (CIA) in a Cold War policy begun in 1947 to prove that the United States could foster more artistic freedom than the Soviet bloc.<ref>{{cite web| url = https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-was-cia-weapon-1578808.html| title = Modern art was CIA 'weapon' {{!}} The Independent | website = [[Independent.co.uk]]| date = 21 October 1995}}</ref>  "It was recognized that Abstract Expressionism was the kind of art that made [[Socialist realism|Socialist Realism]] look even more stylized and rigid and confined than it was," said former CIA case worker Donald Jameson, who finally broke the silence on this program in 1995.  Ironically, the covert CIA support for these radical works was required because an attempt to use government funds for a European tour of these works during the Truman administration led to a public uproar in conservative [[McCarthyism|McCarthy-era]] America, with Truman famously remarking, "If that's art, I'm a Hottentot."  Thus, the program was hidden under the guise of fabricated foundations and the support of wealthy patrons who were actually using CIA funds, not their own, to sponsor traveling exhibitions of American abstract expressionists all over the world, publish books and articles praising them and to purchase and exhibit abstract expressionist works in major American and British museums. [[Tom Braden|Thomas Braden]], in charge of these cultural programs for the CIA, in the early years of the Cold War, had formerly been executive secretary of the [[Museum of Modern Art]], America's leading institution for [[20th-century art|20th century art]] and the charges of collusion between the two echoed for many years after this program was revealed, though most of the artists involved had no idea they were being used in this way and were furious when they found out.<ref>{{cite magazine| url = https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/10/17/unpopular-front| title = Unpopular Front {{!}} The New Yorker| magazine = [[The New Yorker]]| date = 10 October 2005}}</ref>