This explains a lot: "Modern art was CIA 'weapon' "

"We have met the enemy and he is us."

I wonder how this crap ever managed to convince people that they are looking at "art."  Now I know.  It was done with my tax money, and yours.

The Central Intelligence Agency used American modern art - including the works of such artists as Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko - as a weapon in the Cold War. In the manner of a Renaissance prince - except that it acted secretly - the CIA fostered and promoted American Abstract Expressionist painting around the world for more than 20 years.

Once it became fashionable, shown in top galleries and museums it was not possible to actually say it was crap if you wanted to maintain your membership in the church of what's happening now. It explains urinals and toilets on display in museums. It explains why rich plutocrats, like the people running Paine Webber, would have "art" made up of pieces of burlap scattered haphazardly over a piece of canvas displayed on the walls of their headquarters in New York City (something I saw and found hard to believe I was actually seeing).  To collect and pay for this sort of garbage requires a willing suspension of disbelief, the ability to fool yourself into thinking that something ugly is actually beautiful.