n the mid-twentieth century, modern art and design represented liberalism, individualism, dynamic activity, and the greatest creative risk possible in a free society.

Jackson Pollock’s gestural style, for instance, drew an effective counterpoint to Nazi, and then Soviet, oppression. Modernism became a cultural weapon during the Cold War. Both the State Department and the CIA supported exhibitions of American art all over the world.

For decades in art circles, it was either a rumor or a joke, but now it is confirmed as a fact. 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.

Most of these paintings refer to Remodernism, which can be summed up by the idea that "Modernism has progressively lost its way until finally toppling into the bottomless pit of postmodern balderdash."

The Remodernism manifesto was published on March 1, 2000, to promote vision, authenticity, and self-expression, emphasizing painting, and was subtitled "Towards a New Spirituality in Art."

Its premise is that the potential of the modernist vision has not been fulfilled, that its development has been in the wrong direction, and that this vision needs to be reclaimed, redefined, and redeveloped. It advocates the search for truth, knowledge, and meaning and challenges formalism.

I was born in Venezuela in the 1970s and grew up in the United States in the 1980s and 1990s. Our modernism was geometric and abstract. This is my own private 1950s.

All work: Oil on canvas, 2022, 65x60cm