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this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2026
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Literally opposite of the truth. Mid-20th century NY artists and intellectuals were communists. Not necessarily pro-USSR, many Trots and anarchists, but certainly not anti-communist liberals. Many of them were harassed during the McCarthyist era.
Abstract Expressionism is partly, and very deliberately went against the capitalist realism of the 40s and 50s. Think about how the current alt-right slobbers over the nuclear family 50s style coca cola ads? Well, Abstract Expressionism is purposely against that kind of representative art. Simply countering it with the same style but with strong steelworkers instead of happy housewives would have been a weak response. They wanted a radical change.
Then the so-called counterculture definitely went against US conservative lifestyle in many ways, but they also actively organized against the Vietnam War and so on.
Now we can talk about how that strand of leftism was "misguided", infantile disorder etc., but thinking that Modern art and later the counterculture was some kind of CIA plot to divert the masses is just a ludicrous oversimplification.
Yeah they failed to bring revolution to the US. But what the hell are current Amerikkkans doing?
Kinda funny you make a broad vibes based comment, but it sounds like you demand sources from me.
First of all, you didn't mention any names. The NY art and intellectual millieu was heavily left leaning.
Second, yes, many of them were anarchists like Newman or Rothko, Pollock participated in the Siqueiros Workshop, unless you think that doesn't count, only CPUSA card carrying commies count,
thirdly it's not just them, but the influential critics too like Clement Greenberg, Harold Rosenberg, and Meyer Schapiro too? Or John Berger? "emptiness is the point?" Was it all psyop? I've seen this hot take before, but it's just bad art history dressed up as Marxism. It isn't serious. Actually engage with it.
I'm not saying all mentioned critics were perfect commies, but don't flatten their contribution. They were interpreting their contemporaries.
(Free interpretation as opposed to what? Revolutionary message in an envelope? Wouldn't free interpretation be the opposite of easy consumerism? The critics I mentioned argued about this a lot. But they did appreciate the art itself.)
We can argue that the anti-Stalinist leftists like Schapiro were misguided in their politics, but then we are veering to a different topic. Or the commodification of dissent, like seeing Abstract art in IKEA, is, again, I believe is a different topic.
Sorry for being polemic, but I'm seeing vulgar Marxist hot takes upbeared in this thread left and right. It's silly.
This is what grinds my gears:
Abstract Expressionism definitely went against capitalist Kitsch (There's a famous essay by Clement Greenberg, originally published in the CPUSA affiliated Partisan Review) Nazis still hate Abstract art. Wonder why.
I am not confusing anything. The commercial art of the era on the billboards and the magazines was the dominant visual code they've rebelled against. (Greenberg called it Kitsch.) Newman doesn't need to say literally that "I'm rebelling against the A&P ad I've seen in The Atlantic", that's just silly.
Again sorry for being combative, nothing personal, but I truly hate the "postwar modern art is a CIA psyop" take. It's fash adjacent vulgar Marxism.
I've never come across the term "vulgar Marxism" before. Are you saying the takes in this post lack rigour? From a quick search I read that vulgar Marxists are those that believe in the separation of Marxism from philosophical thought and that Marxism-Leninism is Lenin's response to that. Is that an accurate assessment? I am gonna have to do a lot of reading
Vulgar Marxism is thinking there's a crude one way direct causal relationship between base and superstructure. i. e. in a capitalist society, workers are atomized psychologically, and artists working in this society make art promoting this kind of atomistic individualism (or whatever)
I also include this more recent wave of thinking, "Well, the CIA/NED helped XY financially, therefore their values perfectly aligned with the US State Department"
The truth is much more nuanced. This was one of the big topics of 20th century Marxism. You can choose randomly (Benjamin, Gramsci, WIlliams et al) and they will touch on this.
here's a pdf of Raymond Williams's Base and Superstructure