So we learn by first hand account the major art movement of the 20th century was a CIA creation. The art may have been original, but its popularity was a CIA gig.
Now in his eighties, Mr Braden lives in Woodbridge, Virginia, in a house packed with Abstract Expressionist works and guarded by enormous Alsatians. He explained the purpose of the IOD.
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He confirmed that his division had acted secretly because of the public hostility to the avant-garde: "It was very difficult to get Congress to go along with some of the things we wanted to do - send art abroad, send symphonies abroad, publish magazines abroad. That's one of the reasons it had to be done covertly. It had to be a secret. In order to encourage openness we had to be secret."
If this meant playing pope to this century's Michelangelos, well, all the better: "It takes a pope or somebody with a lot of money to recognise art and to support it," Mr Braden said. "And after many centuries people say, 'Oh look! the Sistine Chapel, the most beautiful creation on Earth!' It's a problem that civilisation has faced ever since the first artist and the first millionaire or pope who supported him. And yet if it hadn't been for the multi-millionaires or the popes, we wouldn't have had the art."
The CIA also backed some 800 journals, and countless other "arts" in order that the USA could win the cold war. Or not. It could be that with so much money, it was fun to be a government worker and spend unlimited funds on whatever you like. And the idea that art has to be backed by the wealthy is absurd. There were plenty of people who could and did paint as well as Michaelangelo (who did not even consider himself a painter, he signed everything "sculptor"), it's just that with wars bringing up widespread disease and killing talent along with nontalent, and concentrated wealth allowing the few to pick winners and losers, Michaelangelo is not the best, he is all we got. In free markets, there would be countless Sistene chapels.
Note also, the article points out the CIA had to work in secret, since the reps of the people, congress, would not approve.
Did you vote last Tuesday? Why?
Braden says art takes money... nonsense, Michaelangelo complained constantly about how little he was paid... concentrated power can capture artists, and the pope Michaelangelo worked for, knew from power, he, a pope, naming himself after Julius Caesar! He made Michaelangelo an offer he could not refuse.
Go to Hong Kong and see stunning, world class art, unprotected, in shopping malls, for all to get close to. Art is cheap and plentiful in a free market, and there is no restraint on expression. Braden says his department, the government art project, was the most important part of the CIA. No doubt Braden, with al his years in government could come up with juicy examples of govt waste fraud abuse in other parts of the CIA in particular, and the govt in general. Of course. I hear this repeatedly, "oh yes, there is much waste etc, I agree, except for what I am doing (or did.)"
Next, those right wingers swept into office last week, all complain about waste, fraud, abuse. Every govt program has waste fraud abuse. You cannot fund a few thousand people a few billion dollars without having plenty of waste fraud and abuse. Govt programs have no way to know costs, have no market signals from prices, and are penalized if they do not blow out their budgets. Putting phantoms on the payroll, taking a sexytary on a govt biz trip, and stacking in the basement 100 desks too many accidently ordered just comes with the territory. The only way you can cut waste fraud and abuse is to eliminate the program itself. But not a single right winger can name a single program that they would cut.
We need free trade in art. We would get more, better, cheaper, faster.
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