The Cold War, When Art Took SidesThe Cold War, When Art Took Sides

Discover how art was used in the USA and the former USSR after WWII as a way to express opposing political choices and ideologies and as a means of exporting freedom around the World. There was a strong relationship between the arts and politics during the Cold War. The West excelled in Jazz and Abstract Painting and the former USSR excelled in Ballet and Realism Art. This period was commonly known as The Cultural Cold War. Each country was promoting their own culture and Arts through propaganda campaigns. It was a freedom of expression that they were defending because in Russia, you could not say whatever you wanted. Through time and civilisation, the elite always understood the power of images and therefore art became a logical tool for influencing people and establishing a hierarchy. After World War II, the enemy shifted from Germany and fascism, to the Soviet Union. Artists and intellectuals were asked to choose. If you were an American, you were an abstractionist and if you were Soviet, you were a realist. In the mid-twentieth century, Modern Art and design represented liberalism and individualism in a Free Society. Jackson Pollock's gestural style drew an effective counterpoint to Nazi and then Soviet, oppression. Modernism became a weapon of the Cold War. Abstract art is about individualism, not about collectivism. The Russians viewed Abstract expressionism as confusing, decadent and dangerous - it was very American and they weren't sure how to deal with it. CIA efforts, lead Abstract art to rise during the Cold War. It was a way to reach the unreachable globalisation through the simplicity of art.