!![Ze Art De' Protest] The New American Propagandist: A C.I.A. Field Manual on Manipulating Public Opinion

Medium: Multimedia (acrylic, oil pen on gallery-wrapped canvas, popsicle stick/toothpick/ twine "leash", invisible UV ink, plastic "glass" for "frames","cigarette" made from paper wrapped flower debris with glow paint tip).

Description:

This installation presents a temporary, freestanding gallery wall stand set against institutional beige gallery walls with scuffed grey baseboards and cold concrete floors. The center of the structure displays a replica of Mark Rothko’s No. 1 (Untitled, 1948), flanked in the background by scaled works of Jackson Pollock and Franz Kline.

The scene recreates the Museum of Modern Art’s landmark 1958 international touring exhibition, The New American Painting. During the Cold War, this specific exhibition was covertly funded and weaponized by the CIA under Operation Long Leash to deploy Abstract Expressionism as proof of American intellectual and capitalist superiority over Soviet communism.

The piece physically embeds the invisible machinery of state control and state money. Under standard gallery lighting, the installation mimics the clean, neutral authority of an art museum, though the heavily scuffed and dirty baseboard hints at a gritty, hidden reality operating behind the scenes. A literal "long leash" snakes through the space, wrapping tightly around the base of the gallery wall stand, tracking along the wall, and binding the entire canvas.

Under the activation of blacklight, the underlying geopolitical infrastructure is fully exposed. The support structures glow with invisible blue UV ink—the symbolic color of the Agency—revealing the name of the operation. Simultaneously, a hidden UV layer appears over the Rothko gallery placard, replacing the museum typography with a stark, declassified directive:

Through it's creation,  this work actively interrogates how institutional spaces participate in the systems that shape our beliefs. It deliberately blurs the line between calling attention to historical propaganda and unintentionally promoting it.

By physically recreating these monumental, captivating abstract works, the installation risks seducing the viewer with the exact aesthetic power that the CIA weaponized. Bound by its literal leash, the artwork functions as a paradox: it warns against state manipulation while relying on the exact same authoritative exhibition tactics to command attention.

Ultimately, the piece reveals how the CIA unintentionally proved its own thesis both right and wrong. The agency was "right" in its gamble that showcasing the "freedom to create" would serve as a potent symbol of Western liberty. However, they were fundamentally "wrong" in treating Abstract Expressionism as an empty vessel or a mere trick of "bad art."

Beyond the subjectivity of aesthetic taste, global markets and cultural institutions continue to heavily value these works, even among generations completely untouched by Cold War statecraft. The operation accidentally demonstrated that with the right initial investment—regardless of the source—the art was robust enough to eventually speak for itself. Though public reactions remain historically mixed, the lasting significance of these movements proves that the art was never just a hollow product of state fabrication; it possessed an enduring vitality that survived its own weaponization.