McCarthy & serial music
Iwan
by Paul Mitchinson
The National Post, 21 July 2001
[...]
But some scholars now believe Cold-War McCarthyism may have had a much
broader influence on American culture -- it may even have shaped the
very sound of American music. According to this view, some U.S.
composers responded to the political pressures of the Cold War by
abandoning popular, folk-inspired works -- such as Copland's own Billy
the Kid, Rodeo, and Appalachian Spring -- in favour of atonal,
audience-alienating works. McCarthy has been accused of a lot of
misdeeds in the past. But ruining American music?
[...]
For complete article:
http://www.paulmitchinson.com/copland.html
Iwan
Alex Temple
music, right?
--
Alex Temple
fiber_optiq at yahoo dot com
"This Temple raving of the week is brought to you by Wayside,
proudly bringing you wierd avant shit since 1981" -Pr33t
Johan Lif
news:3DFF6302...@clueless.org...
> But some scholars now believe Cold-War McCarthyism may have had a much
> broader influence on American culture --
The role played by abstract expressionism in American Cold War propaganda is
a well-discussed subject. See, for instance, Serge Guilbaut's useful and
interesting book How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Art: Abstract
Expressionism, Freedom, and the Cold War (1983). I'll quote a few paragraphs
from a 1999 Observer article by Frances Stonor Saunders ("Investigation: The
CIA's arty tricks department"):
"Yet where Dondero [George Dondero, Republican congressman] saw in abstract
expressionism evidence of a Communist conspiracy, America's cultural
mandarins detected a contrary virtue: for them, it spoke to a specifically
anti-Communist ideology, the ideology of freedom, of free enterprise.
Non-figurative and politically silent, it was the antithesis of socialist
realism. It was precisely the kind of art the Soviets loved to hate. But it
was more than this. It was, claimed its apologists, an explicitly American
intervention in the modernist canon.
(...)
MoMA was contracted to curate several of the congress's exhibitions, and
thus was formally enjoined to the CIA's secret programme of encouraging
European consent for the New York school. The result included the 'Young
Painters' show, which toured Europe in 1956. The costs of mounting and
touring the exhibition, in which abstract expressionism dominated, were met
by the CIA, though its investment was camouflaged by the Congress for
Cultural Freedom. There is further, incontestable evidence of the CIA's
intervention in the fortunes of the New York school. Immediately after the
'Young Painters' show closed, the Congress proposed a follow-up. Once again,
MoMA selected the American participation for the show.
The exhibition which finally opened at the Louvre's Musee des Arts
Decoratifs was called, provocatively, 'Antagonismes'. Dominating the
exhibition were works by Mark Rothko (who was in France at the time), Sam
Francis and Yves Klein (his first showing in Paris). Many of the paintings
had been brought to Paris from Vienna, where the congress had exhibited them
as part of a wider, CIA-orchestrated campaign to undermine the 1959
Communist youth festival. This show had cost the CIA $ 15,365, but for its
expanded version in Paris they had to dig deeper. A further $ 10,000 was
laundered through the Hoblitzelle Foundation (a CIA conduit), to which was
added $ 10,000 from the Association Francaise d'Action Artistique, also
subsidised by the CIA.
This is the prima facie evidence of the CIA's involvement in what one critic
referred to as the 'ideological laundering' of abstract expressionism. It
turned what had once been a provocative and strange gesture into an academic
formula, an art officiel. Thus installed within the canon, the freest form
of art now lacked freedom. More and more painters produced more and more
paintings which got bigger and bigger and emptier and emptier. 'It was like
the emperor's clothes,' said Jason Epstein. 'You parade it down the street
and you say, 'This is great art,' and the people along the parade route will
agree . Who's going to stand up to the Rockefellers and say, 'This stuff is
terrible'?' As one critic put it: 'Few Americans care to argue with a
hundred million dollars'."
Johan
cap...@hotmail.com
wrote:
What I want to know is where Eminem stands on all this...
Iwan
> "Iwan" <wir...@clueless.org> skrev i meddelandet
> news:3DFF6302...@clueless.org...
>
> > But some scholars now believe Cold-War McCarthyism may have had a much
> > broader influence on American culture --
>
> The role played by abstract expressionism in American Cold War propaganda is
> a well-discussed subject.
I never heard about it until you mentioned this.
>
> "Yet where Dondero [George Dondero, Republican congressman] saw in abstract
> expressionism evidence of a Communist conspiracy, ...
heh heh.
Thanks for your comments.
Iwan
Jeff Blanks
>This is the prima facie evidence of the CIA's involvement in what one critic
>referred to as the 'ideological laundering' of abstract expressionism. It
>turned what had once been a provocative and strange gesture into an academic
>formula, an art officiel. Thus installed within the canon, the freest form
>of art now lacked freedom. More and more painters produced more and more
>paintings which got bigger and bigger and emptier and emptier. 'It was like
>the emperor's clothes,' said Jason Epstein. 'You parade it down the street
>and you say, 'This is great art,' and the people along the parade route will
>agree . Who's going to stand up to the Rockefellers and say, 'This stuff is
>terrible'?'
You could as easily say the CIA was trying to destroy Abstract
Expressionism. It's not exactly as if AE is the sort of style that
would normally attract that (excuse me) type of person.
I think of the '60s, and how the punks of the late '70s (see Jello
Biafra) essentially declared that movement "dead" or no longer
legitimate because it had been "co-opted". Same dynamic at work,
perhaps, with those still on the outside of the Establishment
unwittingly doing its bidding?
--
"Composers tend to think that most people really care a lot
about music. Well, most people don't." --Aaron Copland