10 Outlandish Conspiracies That Were Actually True
8. The CIA Funded Abstract Art To Take Down Communism
There was a long seated joke, rumour or urban legend - depending on who was telling the story - in the modern art world: that the CIA had secretly funded the careers of abstract artists like Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, and Mark Rothko, hoping that this expression of creativity and freedom from US artists would act as propaganda against the strict policies for artwork in the Soviet Union under Communist rule.
Then it turned out that it wasn't a joke, rumour or urban legend - it was a thing that actually happened. Despite the majority of the presidents during the period showing an active dislike for the expressionist abstract (maybe a neat double-bluff), during the fifties and sixties the CIA fostered many anti-Communist creative ventures, including the animated film version of Animal Farm. Their masterstroke was in funding the careers of artists like Rothko; although many of these abstract types had Communist sympathies themselves, the Intelligence Agency thought it prudent and effective to recontextualise their work as the sort that made America great, in comparison to those censoring philistines in the East.
It took until 1995 for a former agent to reveal the scheme, explaining that at the time the CIA was mainly staffed by Harvard and Yale graduates with liberal leanings when it came to books, music and culture. Under the name the Congress for Cultural Freedom, the CIA secretly bought and toured artwork by Abstract Expressionists, proving that the USA was a sophisticated, culturally rich democracy. With your tax dollars, and unbeknownst to the painters earning them.