A focus on America’s Cold War with the Soviet Union during the ‘Era of global conflict’ (1900-1970), specifically post-WWII ( Pollock) and after 1960 (Warhol).

W A R T

R

Is freedom of speech / freedom of expression

important? Why?

Why not?

Global upheaval and artistic revolution In the first half of the twentieth century, between

1900 and 1945, the major industrial powers fought two world wars, witnessed the rise of Communism, Fascism, Nazism, and suffered the Great Depression. This was also a time of radical change in art. Furthermore, transatlantic travel became more and more common, allowing an exchange of ideas and culture, until finally, in the 1930s, there was the beginning of a CHANGE OF CENTRE from Paris to NEW YORK that would become definitive in the 1960s, after the destruction of WWII. Straight after the Great Depression of 1929, some American artists, including Pollock, enrolled in ‘New Deal’ programmes (the US Govt established programmes to provide relief and reform) where they were paid a wage in exchange for artworks. Despite economic hardships, the United States became a haven for many European artists seeking escape from Hitler and the Nazis. There was a type of exodus from Paris (Europe) to New York as the new centre of the artistic world.

The New York school painters developed ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM, focusing on form and energy, instead of subject matter. Pollock’s painting emphasize the creative process (ACTION PAINTING), not only the end result. His nickname was “Jack the Dripper”. He took the canvas away from the upright easel to the floor, and so revolutionised technique. He felt that in this way he could be IN his painting while it was being created.

After WWII, 1945: The New York School and Jackson Pollock (1912-1956)

How can art be used as a weapon?The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) used American modern art -

including the works of such artists as Jackson Pollock, Robert

Motherwell, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko - as a weapon of

PROPAGANDA in the Cold War. Just like a noble family of the

Renaissance - except that it acted secretly - the CIA fostered

and promoted American Abstract Expressionist painting around the

world for more than 20 years.

Why did the CIA support them?

Because in the propaganda war with the Soviet Union, this new

artistic movement was proof of the creativity, the intellectual

freedom, and the cultural power of the US. Russian art, in

contrast, was tightly tied into the communist ideological

straitjacket, and could not compete. America has a better public

image.

The ‘long leash’

The CIA promoted artists, writers and musicians, all in complete

secret and using a chain of people (at least 3 connections

‘deep’) who were closer to Moscow than Washington. This was

known as the ‘long leash’ approach. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-was-cia-weapon-1578808.html

Because Abstract Expressionism was expensive to move around and exhibit, millionaires and museums were involved - for example, Nelson Rockefeller, whose mother had co-founded the Museum of Modern Art in New York. As president of what he called "Mummy's museum", Rockefeller was one of the biggest backers of Abstract Expressionism. The museum was also linked to the CIA by several other bridges. William Paley, the president of CBS broadcasting and a founding father of the CIA, sat on the members' board of the museum's International Programme. John Hay Whitney, who had served in the agency's wartime predecessor, the OSS, was its chairman.

And Tom Braden, first chief of the CIA's International Organisations Division, was executive secretary of MOMA in 1949. Braden, who died in 2009, explained, "We wanted to unite all the people who were writers, who were musicians, who were artists, to demonstrate that the West and the United States was devoted to freedom of expression and to intellectual achievement, without any rigid barriers as to what you must write, and what you must say, and what you must do, and what you must paint, which was what was going on in the Soviet Union. I think it was the most important division that the agency had, and I think that it played an enormous role in the Cold War."

Jackson Pollock (1912-1956), Number 1A, 1948, oil and enamel paint on canvas, MOMA, New York http://youtu.be/NT0SHjOowLA His technique: One: Number 31, 1950 http://youtu.be/EncR_T0faKM

The Painting Techniques of Mark Rothko (American, born Russia 1903-1970) No. 16 (Red, Brown, and Black), 1958, oil on canvas, MOMA, New York http://youtu.be/vSiu8qzHV6c

If Abstract Expressionism (1945 – 1960s) communicated the USA’s artistic and social freedom, then Pop art (1950/60s) communicated the (apparent) power of American consumerism, capitalism, prosperity & people - the American Dream? http://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-1010/pop/a/pop-art

http://youtu.be/mp_yuJENii4 Marilyn

What is consumer culture?Is it good for society?

Why/Why not?

What is art’s role in consumer culture?

Andy Warhol, Gold Marilyn Monroe, 1962, Silkscreen ink on synthetic polymer paint on canvas, MOMA, New York“Here was art that was simultaneously in love with and critical of the ephemera of consumer culture.” Warhol made this painting the year screen legend Marilyn Monroe committed suicide. He painted the canvas an iridescent gold and silkscreened the star’s face in the centre of the composition. Like other paintings by Warhol that feature Monroe’s likeness, this work is based on a 1953 publicity still for the movie Niagara. By duplicating a photograph known to millions, Warhol undermined (weakened) the uniqueness and authenticity characteristic of traditional portraiture. Instead he presented Monroe as an infinitely reproducible image that, for a price, could be bought.

Jasper Johns, Flag, 1954-55, encaustic, oil, and collage on fabric mounted on plywood, three panels, MOMA, New Yorkhttp://youtu.be/GWiTbfy7DmU

Is it a flag? Is it a painting? Is it a painted flag? War or peace?Johns wanted to draw attention to things people see all the time but never scrutinize, things he called ‘seen but not looked at’.The work has 48 stars (it was before Hawaii and Alaska joined the USA). Johns transformed everyday elements of our world, into objects, hand-made things.

Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997), Rouen Cathedral, Set 5, 1969, oil and magna on canvas, SFMomahttp://youtu.be/GpwAsXrBJ-Q

Sources: Khan Academyhttp://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-1010

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/7d7e2344-3bbd-11e3-9851-00144feab7de.html

MOMA videos

http://www.artbabble.org/video/sfmoma/jackson-pollock-work

http://www.artbabble.org/video/sfmoma/jackson-pollock-his-process

http://www.artbabble.org/video/guggenheim/art-another-kind-exhibition

http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKbraden.htm

http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1847017,00.html

http://youtu.be/AO3rYVU782c Art and the Cold War

http://www.artbabble.org/video/ngadc/roy-lichtenstein-retrospective-national-gallery-art-washington

http://www.artbabble.org/video/sfmoma/andy-warhol-work

http://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2000/05/29/quando-la-cia-favoriva-la-pop-art.html