Funk Symposium

Antifurniture, 2018. Silkscreened long sleeve t-shirt.

Edition of 25 (including tie dyed). 

In 1967 curator Peter Selz organized the now infamous “Funk” show at University of Art Museum in Berkeley, California. The accompanying catalogue, designed by Bruce Montgomery, included a range of California based artists, including Arlo Acton, Bob Anderson, Jeremy Anderson, Robert Arneson, Mowry Baden, Jerrold Ballaine, Sue Bitney, Joan Brown, Bruce Conner, Roy De Forest, William Geis, David Gilhooly, Mel Henderson, Robert Hudson, Jean Linder, James Melchert, Gary Molitor, William Morehouse, Manuel Neri, Harold Paris, Don Potts, Kenneth Price, Peter Saul, Peter Voulkos, Wm. T. Wiley, and Franklin Williams.

A subsequent symposium organized by Selz, intended as an academic discussion of “Funk”, was widely disrupted by the artists, with particularly loud objections by Bruce Conner. Someone threw a shoe, another artist poured a glass of water on their own head, another blared a bugle in protest of Selz’s intended institutional sanction. Though not overtly political, the loosely termed “Funk” came to define an individualistic and personal rejection of both art market and materialistic norms.

Oversize / onesize. 100% cotton.