Funk Art

Funk art is an art movement that was a reaction against the nonobjectivity of abstract expressionism. Known as an anti establishment movement, Funk art began to paint subject matter again rather than playing with the non-figurative, abstract forms that abstract expressionists such as Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko were depicting. The movement’s name was derived from the jazz musical term "funky", 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 funk 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 the Bay Area of California in the United States. Although discussed as a cohesive movement, Funk artists did not feel as if they belonged to a collective art style or group. This is because Funk consisted of artists who shared the same attitudes and created similar works, but were not necessarily working in the same art schools.