Artists 1950-1970
Paralleling a new interest in eastern philosophy and Zen via Alan Watts and the literary and poetic irreverence of Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, and others, visual artists such as Bruce Conner and Jay DeFeo diverged from the Abstract Expressionism 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 style. Involving bright colors, humor and word-play, Funk is most often associated with the ceramic work of Robert Arneson, and the paintings of William T. Wiley. All three, along with Roy De Forest and Manuel Neri taught at UC Davis in the 60s and 70s. (Artist and educator Peter Voulkos 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 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. In the Bay Area, starting in the 1970s, Artists such as Tom Marioni, Paul Kos, Howard Fried and Terry Fox, explored the intersection of performance and sculpture. Also picking up on conceptualism, with an added materialist strain, was David Ireland.
In 1967 The Experimental Television Project (later renamed the National Center for Experiments in Television), housed at KQED studios was one of the first programs in the nation to give artists access to television studios and equipment. Groups like Ant Farm, Video Free America, and T.R. Uthco working in the same moment were video recording "happening" performances, and experimenting with light sound and time.
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“The past is interesting not only for the beauty which the artists for whom it was the present were able to extract from it, but also as past, for its historical value. The same goes for the present. The pleasure which we derive from the representation of the present is due not only to the beauty in which it may be clothed, but also from its essential quality of being present.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)