Parapolitics : Cultural Freedom and the Cold War

Description

Tent. Berlijn, Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), 03-11-2017, 08-01-2018. - Studie analyseert de erfenis van het modernisme als een culturele beweging en propagandamiddel gedurende de Koude Oorlog in de jaren '50. Met bijzondere aandacht voor het Congress for Cultural Freedom. - Coll. VAM: Polke, Sigmar, Höhere Wesen befahlen: rechte obere Ecke schwarz malen!, 1969, p. 19 ill. zw. - An examination of the use of modernism in the twentieth-century battle for US hegemony, through the activities of the CIA-funded Congress for Cultural Freedom. Parapolitics confronts the contemporary fate of intellectual autonomy and artistic freedom by revisiting the use of modernism in the twentieth-century battle for US hegemony. It builds on a major exhibition at Haus der Kulturen der Welt (2017-18) that took as its starting point the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) - an organization covertly funded by the Central Intelligence Agency in order to steer the Left away from its remaining commitment to communism. Paying particular attention to CCF activities in the non-European world during a period of decolonization and the Civil Rights Movement, Parapolitics assembles archival documentation from five continents alongside a selection of historical artworks to explore the context in which artists negotiated the framing and meaning of their work. A rich reference book for future researchers and everybody interested in the legacy of modernism, the publication also presents more than thirty newly commissioned contributions by contemporary artists and scholars.