The history of art in 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 Go ...

includes major contributions to

contemporary art Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic com ...

, including

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 ...

. The area is known for its cross-disciplinary artists like

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- ...

, Bruce Nauman, and

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 ...

as well as a large number of non-profit alternative art spaces including

New Langton Arts New Langton Arts (active 1975 – 2009) was a not-for-profit arts organization focusing on contemporary art founded in 1975 and located the South of Market neighborhood in San Francisco, California. Part of the first wave of alternative art spaces ...

, Intersection for the Arts, and Southern Exposure.

Visual Arts The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual art, and textile arts al ...

has undergone many permutations paralleling innovation and

hybridity Hybridity, in its most basic sense, refers to mixture. The term originates from biology and was subsequently employed in linguistics and in racial theory in the nineteenth century. Young, Robert. ''Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture and R ...

in literature and theater.

Artists 1950-present

Paralleling a new interest in eastern philosophy and Zen via Alan Watts and the literary and poetic irreverence of Lawrence Ferlinghetti,

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...

, and others, visual artists such as

and

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' ...

diverged from the

of the east coast to make connections between sculpture and painting. Connor's found material assemblages, collages and experimental films make him an early cross-disciplinary pioneer. Painter Wayne Thiebaud's paintings of commonplace products such as toys or gumball machines paralleled the pop influenced

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 m ...

style. Involving bright colors, humor and word-play, Funk is most often associated with the ceramic work of

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 Arn ...

, and the paintings of

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 as ...

. All three, along with

Roy De Forest Roy De Forest (11 February 1930 – 18 May 2007) was an American Painting, painter, Sculpture, 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 quirk ...

and Manuel Neri taught at UC Davis in the 60s and 70s. (Artist and educator

set the stage for Funk by reengaging ceramics as part of contemporary studio practice.) Bruce Nauman, who is often credited with dissolving the medium specific practices of previous generations, went to UC Davis and studied under William Wiley. By the end of the 1960s

Conceptual Art Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art, sometimes called insta ...

and Minimal Art were reforming the aesthetics and values of visual art. Bay Area artists responded to the dominance of the white cube, and transitioned from an object-oriented to a systems-oriented practice inspired by

Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...

. In the Bay Area, starting in the 1970s, Artists such as

Tom Marioni Tom Marioni (born 1937, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States) is an American artist and educator, known for his conceptual artwork. Marioni was active in the emergence of Conceptual Art movement in the 1960s. He founded the Museum of Conceptual Art ( ...

, Paul Kos,

Howard Fried Howard Fried (born June 14, 1946, in Cleveland, Ohio) is an American conceptual artist who became known in the 1970s for his pioneering work in video art, performance art, and installation art. He lives and works in Vallejo, California. Biography ...

and

Terry Fox Terrance Stanley Fox (July 28, 1958 June 28, 1981) was a Canadian athlete, humanitarian, and cancer research activist. In 1980, with one leg having been amputated due to cancer, he embarked on an east-to-west cross-Canada run to raise money ...

, explored the intersection of performance and sculpture. Also picking up on conceptualism, with an added materialist strain, was David Ireland.

Tony Labat Tony Labat (born 1951) is a Cuban-born multimedia and installation artist. He has exhibited internationally over the last 40 years, developing a body of work in performance, Video, sculpture and Installation. Labat's work has dealt with investigat ...

brought a political dimension to Bay Area conceptualism, with video, performance and installation works that confronted issues of cultural identity, loss and displacement. In 1967 The Experimental Television Project (later renamed the National Center for Experiments in Television), housed at

KQED KQED may refer to: * KQED (TV), a PBS member station in San Francisco * KQED-FM KQED-FM (88.5 MHz) is a NPR-member radio station in San Francisco, California. Its parent organization is KQED Inc., which also owns its television partners, both ...

studios was one of the first programs in the nation to give artists access to television studios and equipment. Groups like

Ant Farm A formicarium or ant farm is a vivarium which is designed primarily for the study of ant colonies and how ants behave. Those who study ant behavior are known as myrmecologists. History The formicarium was invented by Charles Janet, a French ...

, Video Free America, and T.R. Uthco working in the same moment were video recording "happening" performances, and experimenting with light sound and time.

Public Art

The

has a variety of public art, including murals and graffiti in many locations.

Art Spaces

* Southern Exposure *

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) is a multi-disciplinary contemporary arts center in San Francisco, California, United States. Located in Yerba Buena Gardens, YBCA features visual art, performance, and film/video that celebrates local, natio ...

* The LAB * Intersection for the Arts
The BoxShop

Schools

* California College of the Arts *

San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximately ...

References

External links