Celanese Ads from the Financial Analysts Journal, 1963-64'

Cold War Delusions

A few advertisements from the Financial Analysts Journal that I ran into while working at JSTOR -- I've been interested in studying the correlations between the Cold War and 20th Century art forms as of the late, and I found these ads to be pretty interesting since it provides some context behind how abstract art had functioned as a political and economic device back then.

These are from 1963 and 1964 -- around the time when modernism was at its peak (at least in terms of its influence) and when the Cold War and the Space Race was in full swing. The ads speak of freedom of expression, technological and creative innovation, imagination and exploration, management of "chance" and "risk", and the juxtaposition of things otherwise previously unrelated -- all of which has been advocated by artists of that time period in one way or another. From the very beginning of its conception, the avant-garde and corporate culture has shared a very close relationship with one another, acting as advocates of free expression and free enterprise against the strictly enforced socialist realism and planned economies of the Soviet Union.

As multinational corporations became larger and more influential around the world, their rhetoric shifted toward ideas of multicultural unity and localization, through the belief that a standardized product could also be made to serve the needs of the local populace. These are highlighted in some of the later ads, which can be seen as precursors to globalization and postmodernism.