Funk art is an American

art movement An art movement is a tendency or style in art with a specific common philosophy or goal, followed by a group of artists during a specific period of time, (usually a few months, years or decades) or, at least, with the heyday of the movement defin ...

that was a reaction against the nonobjectivity of

abstract expressionism Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...

. An

anti-establishment An anti-establishment view or belief is one which stands in opposition to the conventional social, political, and economic principles of a society. The term was first used in the modern sense in 1958, by the British magazine ''New Statesman'' ...

movement, Funk art brought figuration back as subject matter in

painting Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and a ...

again rather than limiting itself to the non-figurative, abstract forms that abstract expressionists such as

Jackson Pollock Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionism, abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his "Drip painting, drip technique" of pouring or splas ...

and

Mark Rothko Mark Rothko (), born Markus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz (russian: Ма́ркус Я́ковлевич Ротко́вич, link=no, lv, Markuss Rotkovičs, link=no; name not Anglicized until 1940; September 25, 1903 – February 25, 1970), was a Lat ...

were depicting. The movement's name was derived from the

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

musical term "

funk Funk is a music genre that originated in African American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African Americans in the mi ...

y", describing the passionate, sensuous, and quirky. During the 1920s, jazz was thought of as very basic, unsophisticated music, and many people believed Funk was an unrefined style of art as well. The term

also had negative connotations because the word had an association with a foul odor. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Funk was a popular art form, mainly in California's

Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Gov ...

in the United States. Although discussed as a cohesive movement, Funk artists did not feel as if they belonged to a

collective A collective is a group of entities that share or are motivated by at least one common issue or interest, or work together to achieve a common objective. Collectives can differ from cooperatives in that they are not necessarily focused upon an ...

art style or group.Karlstrom, Paul J. ''Peter Selz: Sketches of a Life in Art''. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012. This is because while its artists shared the same attitudes and created similar works, they were not necessarily working together.

History

San Francisco Bay Area

The Funk art movement was a regional art movement, most predominant in

Northern California Northern California (colloquially known as NorCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. Spanning the state's northernmost 48 counties, its main population centers incl ...

. Some notable cities that the Funk movement was concentrated in are Berkeley,

Marin County Marin County is a county located in the northwestern part of the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 262,231. Its county seat and largest city is San Rafael. Marin County is acros ...

Big Sur Big Sur () is a rugged and mountainous section of the Central Coast of California between Carmel and San Simeon, where the Santa Lucia Mountains rise abruptly from the Pacific Ocean. It is frequently praised for its dramatic scenery. Big Sur ...

Davis Davis may refer to: Places Antarctica * Mount Davis (Antarctica) * Davis Island (Palmer Archipelago) * Davis Valley, Queen Elizabeth Land Canada * Davis, Saskatchewan, an unincorporated community * Davis Strait, between Nunavut and Gre ...

and North Beach. Many Funk artists began as

Bay Area Figurative Movement The Bay Area Figurative Movement (also known as the Bay Area Figurative School, Bay Area Figurative Art, Bay Area Figuration, and similar variations) was a mid-20th Century art movement made up of a group of artists in the San Francisco Bay Area w ...

painters in the 1950s. The movement originated from the bohemian underground in the Bay Area.Engelbach, Barbara ''Looking for Mushrooms: Beat Poets, Hippies, Funk, Minimal Art San Francisco 1955-68''. Köln König: Museum Ludwig, Köln, 2008. During the 1960s, the Bay Area, specifically

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

, was a free and spiritual environment due to its

beatnik Beatniks were members of a social movement in the 1950s that subscribed to an anti-materialistic lifestyle. History In 1948, Jack Kerouac introduced the phrase "Beat Generation", generalizing from his social circle to characterize the under ...

art culture and the youth political activism reacting against the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

going on at the time. A variety of different cultures existed in the city, including poetry, jazz, and art. The freedom of thinking and culture was one of the main reasons that Funk art, a combination of both painting and sculpture, could develop and prosper in the Bay Area. The Funk art that occurred throughout Northern California was the exact opposite of the "Fetish Finish" sculptures made in

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most populous urban ...

and the "primary structures" constructed in New York at the time.Selz, Peter. ''Funk''. Berkeley: The Regents of the University of California, 1967. Funk art in the Bay Area was unique and not similar to any other movement of the 1960s.

Jess Jess is a unisex given name, often a short form ( hypocorism) of Jessica, Jesse, Jessie, etc., and a surname. It may refer to: Given name * Jess Atkinson (born 1961), American football player * Jess Cain (1926–2008), American radio host * ...

, Wally Hedrick,

Jay DeFeo Jay DeFeo (March 31, 1929 – November 11, 1989) was a visual artist who first became celebrated in the 1950s as part of the spirited community of Beat artists, musicians, and poets in San Francisco. Best known for her monumental work ''The Rose' ...

Viola Frey Viola Frey (August 15, 1933 – July 26, 2004) was an American artist working in sculpture, painting and drawing, and professor emerita at California College of the Arts. She lived and worked in the San Francisco Bay Area and was renowned for he ...

Wallace Berman Wallace "Wally" Berman (February 18, 1926 – February 18, 1976) was an American experimental filmmaker, assemblage, and collage artist and a crucial figure in the history of post-war California art. Personal life and education Wallace Berman ...

Maija Peeples-Bright Maija Peeples-Bright (née Maija Gegeris; born 1942) is a Latvian-born American and Canadian painter, ceramist, and arts educator. She is known as one of the pioneers of the Funk art movement in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1960s. Maija Pee ...

, and

Bruce Conner Bruce Conner (November 18, 1933 – July 7, 2008) was an American artist who worked with assemblage, film, drawing, sculpture, painting, collage, and photography. Biography Bruce Conner was born November 18, 1933 in McPherson, Kansas.His well- ...

were notable Funk artists who emerged from the Bay Area. Jess was one of the earliest and most influential Funk artists. In 1967,

Peter Selz Peter Howard Selz (March 27, 1919 – June 21, 2019) was a German-born American art historian and museum director and curator who specialized in German Expressionism. Biography Peter Selz was born in Munich of Jewish parents. In 1936, aged 17, h ...

, the first director of the University Art Museum in Berkeley, California, organized a Funk Show there. Selz wanted to showcase the strange mindset in California through an array of Funk pieces. The exhibition featured works from

Peter Voulkos Peter Voulkos (born Panagiotis Harry Voulkos; 29 January 1924 – 16 February 2002) was an American artist of Greek descent. He is known for his abstract expressionist ceramic sculptures, which crossed the traditional divide between ceramic cr ...

Mowry Baden Mowry Baden (born in 1936 in Los Angeles) is an American sculptor who has lived and worked in Canada since 1975. He is known for his gallery-based kinaesthetic sculptures and for his public sculpture, both of which require a strong element of bodi ...

and

, and it brought national recognition to the movement for the first time.Albright, Thomas. '' Art in the San Francisco Bay Area 1945-1980''. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985. Before this show, not many people outside of the Bay Area had seen or heard of Funk works, which relieved artists of pressures to become successful.

Characteristics and techniques

The characteristics and techniques of Funk art works were more important than the subject matter.

Self-identification

Unlike earlier movements, such as

Dada Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 1920 Dada flourished in Pari ...

and

Surrealism Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to ...

, Funk art was not concerned with public

morality Morality () is the differentiation of intentions, decisions and actions between those that are distinguished as proper (right) and those that are improper (wrong). Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of co ...

. Its artists were committed to identifying with their works on a personal level instead of the social, political, or existential. Through their absurdist works, Funk artists demonstrated personal feelings, emotions, and processes, and, in this way, their work may be said to have a closer relationship to nature rather than to culture, often featuring animals as subject matter. The works championed creative freedom and reflected the artists' lives, personalities, and experiences. Funk artists imbued their work with a sense of humor, senselessness, confrontation, vulgar sexuality, and

autobiographical An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life. It is a form of biography. Definition The word "autobiography" was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English peri ...

references. In their pieces, Funk artists are sometimes self-deprecating and

ironic Irony (), in its broadest sense, is the juxtaposition of what on the surface appears to be the case and what is actually the case or to be expected; it is an important rhetorical device and literary technique. Irony can be categorized into d ...

. Although the artworks may be humorous, they may also convey a more serious undertone at times. Since many of the pieces lacked a clear meaning, Funk art often contains a sense of ambiguity.

Found objects

Funk art was inspired by

popular culture Popular culture (also called mass culture or pop culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as, popular art or mass art) and objects that are dominant or prevalent in a ...

, may be brash or crude, and uses an unlikely mixture of materials and techniques. One of the movement's main characteristics the incorporation of found objects from consumer culture. It was part of a larger movement called Assemblage, which also included paintings that were composed of three-dimensional objects.

was known for his assemblage works, including ''Arachne'', ''Spider Lady'', ''For Marilyn'', ''Cosmic Death Song'', and ''Tick Tock Jelly Clock Cosmotron''. Many of the Funk assemblage pieces were composed of thrown out garbage to demonstrate that Funk art was not a part of consumer culture. The pieces are usually three dimensional, but they resemble paintings more than sculptures.

and Wally Hedrick were two of the first Funk artists to use found objects in their works. The objects used tended to be items that were not meant to be noticed. The idea of using ordinary subject matter and common objects in art was influenced by

Robert Rauschenberg Milton Ernest "Robert" Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the Pop art movement. Rauschenberg is well known for his Combines (1954–1964), a group of artwor ...

and

Jasper Johns Jasper Johns (born May 15, 1930) is an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker whose work is associated with abstract expressionism, Neo-Dada, and pop art. He is well known for his depictions of the American flag and other US-related top ...

. This concept is also influenced by the pieces of the

movement because both art movements use everyday objects and convey a sense of freedom. The objects and debris used in works symbolized decay much of the time. Due to the artists' lack of concern with technique, form, or durability, the works have a somewhat haphazard, spontaneous feel to them.

Ceramics

Non-functional ceramic art was an important element in the Funk art movement, especially in Regina, California, the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area G ...

and

. Funk art ceramics were primarily composed from clay and sometimes possessed themes that were thought of as inappropriate. Similar to its three dimensional paintings, Funk ceramics contained vulgar male humor, as well as sexual references.Shields, Scott A. "California Funk." ''Ceramics Monthly 56.9'' (2008): 38-41. Academic Search Complete. Web. 12 Mar. 2012. Like other Funk works, the ceramics also used funny and absurd styles and images to relay the message that people should not take art or themselves too seriously. The ceramics were unrefined and blatant, and they all possessed the idea of a functionless sculpture for sculptures sake.

Robert Arneson

Robert Arneson Robert Carston Arneson (September 4, 1930 – November 2, 1992) was an American sculptor and professor of ceramics in the Art department at University of California, Davis for nearly three decades. Early life and education Robert Carston Ar ...

started the ceramic art movement within Funk art in the Bay Area. Before him, ceramics were considered more of a craft rather than a prestigious art form. After him, ceramics caught on as a serious form of art nationally.

created many ceramic sculptures, which eventually became a common work of Funk artists. Some believe his ceramics were influenced by pop art sculptures because they were of mundane, everyday objects. A main difference was that

also included personal elements to his sculptures, which was a defining factor of Funk art. His works were playful and full of color.

, along with other Funk artists, such as

Roy De Forest Roy De Forest (11 February 1930 – 18 May 2007) was an American painter, sculptor, and teacher. He was involved in both the Funk art and Nut art movements in the Bay Area of California. De Forest's art is known for its quirky and comical fanta ...

Manuel Neri Manuel John Neri Jr. (April 12, 1930October 18, 2021) was an American sculptor who is recognized for his life-size figurative sculptures in plaster, bronze, and marble. In Neri's work with the figure, he conveys an emotional inner state that is re ...

, and

William T. Wiley William Thomas Wiley (October 21, 1937April 25, 2021) was an American artist. His work spanned a broad range of media including drawing, painting, sculpture, film, performance, and pinball. At least some of Wiley's work has been referred to a ...

taught at the

University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The inst ...

, which was a center for the movement. Students from

, such as Margaret Dodd,

David Gilhooly David Gilhooly (also known as David James Gilhooly III) (April 15, 1943 – August 21, 2013), was an American Ceramic art, ceramicist, Sculpture, sculptor, Painting, painter, Printmaking, printmaker, and professor. He is best known for pioneer ...

Victor Cicansky Victor Cicansky, DFA (born 1935) is a Canadian sculptor known for his witty narrative ceramics and bronze fruits and vegetables.Ferguson, Bruce and Phillips, Carol A. ''Victor Cicansky: Clay Sculpture.'' Norman Mackenzie Art Gallery: Regina 1983. ...

, Chris Unterseher, Peter Vandenberge, and Maija Peeples-Bright continued Arneson's ceramics tradition. In 1967,

drafted ceramicist

Clayton Bailey Clayton George Bailey (March 9, 1939 – June 6, 2020), was an American artist who worked primarily in the mediums of ceramic and metal sculpture. Early life and education Clayton George Bailey was born on March 9, 1939 in Antigo, Wisconsin. In ...

to cover his classes at

while he took a

sabbatical A sabbatical (from the Hebrew: (i.e., Sabbath); in Latin ; Greek: ) is a rest or break from work. The concept of the sabbatical is based on the Biblical practice of '' shmita'' (sabbatical year), which is related to agriculture. According ...

. Bailey, who hailed from

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

, had been pursuing a personal, but similar artistic vision to what had been happening with the Funk art movement in northern California. In 1968, Bailey permanently relocated to the Bay Area, where he soon became a key figure in the region's developing Funk art scene.

Exhibitions

Founded in

Folsom, California Folsom is a city in Sacramento County, California, United States. It is commonly known for Folsom State Prison, the song " Folsom Prison Blues" by Johnny Cash, as well as for Folsom Lake. The population was 80,454 at the 2020 census. Folsom is p ...

, in 1962, the

Candy Store Gallery The Candy Store Gallery (from 1962 to 1992) introduced many important artists and styles of art, and was a leading showcase for the Funk artists of Northern California, United States. History Located in a commercial building at 605 Sutter Stre ...

played a key role in promoting Funk art by means of regular exhibitions until its closure in 1992.

Important figures of the Funk art school

* Robert David Brady *

Mark Bulwinkle Mark Bulwinkle (born 1946, Waltham, Massachusetts) is an American graphic artist and sculptor who works in cut steel. He received a BFA from the University of Pittsburgh in 1968 and an MFA in printmaking from the San Francisco Art Institute in 19 ...

Honolulu Museum of Art, ''Spalding House: Self-guided Tour, Sculpture Garden'', p. 19 *

* Robert H. Hudson *

Ed Kienholz Edward Ralph Kienholz (October 23, 1927 – June 10, 1994) was an American Installation art, installation artist and assemblage (art), assemblage sculpture, sculptor whose work was highly critical of aspects of modern life. From 1972 onwards, he ...

Gladys Nilsson Gladys M. Nilsson (born May 6, 1940) is an American artist, and one of the original Hairy Who Chicago Imagists, a group of representational artists active during the 1960s and 1970s. She is married to fellow-artist and Hairy Who member Jim N ...

Jim Nutt James T. Nutt (born November 28, 1938) is an American artist who was a founding member of the Chicago surrealist art movement known as the Chicago Imagists, or the Hairy Who. Though his work is inspired by the same pop culture that inspired ...

Peter Saul Peter Saul (born August 16, 1934) is an American painter. His work has connections with Pop Art, Surrealism, and Expressionism. His early use of pop culture cartoon references in the late 1950s and very early 1960s situates him as one of the fa ...

Carlos Villa Carlos Villa (December 11, 1936 – March 23, 2013) was a Filipino-American visual artist, curator and faculty member in the Painting Department at the San Francisco Art Institute. His work often explored the meaning of cultural diversity and ...

{{Cite news, url=https://openspace.sfmoma.org/2013/03/carlos-villa-1936-2013-3/, title=Carlos Villa passed 1936–2013, last=Cobb, first=Chris, date=March 24, 2013, work=SFMOMA Open Space, access-date=Dec 6, 2017, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171206202253/https://openspace.sfmoma.org/2013/03/carlos-villa-1936-2013-3/, url-status=live, archive-date=December 6, 2017 *

* Patti Warashina *

References

Sources

* Daniels, Diana L., ''Clayton Bailey's World of Wonders'', Sacramento, Crocker Art Museum, 2011. * Dempsey, Amy, ''Styles, Schools and Movements, The Essential Encyclopaedic Guide to Modern Art'', New York, Thames & Hudson, 2005. * San Jose Museum of Art, ''The Lighter Side of Bay Area Figuration'', San Jose, California, San Jose Museum of Art, 2000.

External links

The Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery
Art movements