Art punk or avant punk refers to post-punk music of an experimental bent, or with connections to art school, the art world, or the avant garde.

The earliest bands to be described as "art-punk" were bands from the New York scene of the mid 1970s such as the New York Dolls, Television, Ramones, and Patti Smith. Bands such as Wire (most of whom had been art students), and The Ex, who have incorporated jazz, noise and ethnic music into their punk rock sound, took elements from the avant garde and were described as "avant-punk". Later band such as Dog Faced Hermans followed a similar path. The No Wave scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s is seen as a branch of art punk, and was described by Martin Rev of Suicide as "a valid avant-garde extension of rock". Other bands described as "art punk" include Fugazi, and Goes Cube.Crass have also been described as art-punk due to their incorporation of other art forms into their performances.

In their book Art into Pop, Simon Frith and Howard Horne described the band managers of the 1970s punk bands as "the most articulate theorists of the art punk movement", with Bob Last of Fast Product identified as one of the first to apply art theory to marketing, and Tony Wilson's Factory Records described as "applying the Bauhaus principle of the same 'look' for all the company's goods". Anna Szemere traces the beginnings of the Hungarian art-punk subculture to 1978, when punk band The Spions performed three concerts which drew on conceptualist performance art and Antonin Artaud's "theatre of cruelty", with neo-avant garde/anarchist manifestos handed out to the audience. Wire's Colin Newman described art punk in 2006 as "the drug of choice of a whole generation."

Art is a term that describes a diverse range of human activities and the products of those activities, but is most often understood to refer to painting, film, photography, sculpture, and other visual media. Music, theatre, dance, literature, and interactive media are included in a broader definition of art or the arts. Until the 17th century, art referred to any skill or mastery and was not differentiated from crafts or sciences, but in modern usage the fine arts are distinguished from acquired skills in general.

Many definitions of art have been proposed by philosophers and others who have characterized art in terms of mimesis, expression, communication of emotion, or other values. During the Romantic period, art came to be seen as "a special faculty of the human mind to be classified with religion and science".

The nature of art, and related concepts such as creativity and interpretation, are explored in a branch of philosophy known as aesthetics.

The Encyclopædia Britannica Online defines art as "the use of skill and imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others". By this definition of the word, artistic works have existed for almost as long as humankind: from early pre-historic art to contemporary art; however, some theories restrict the concept to modern Western societies. The first and broadest sense of art is the one that has remained closest to the older Latin meaning, which roughly translates to "skill" or "craft." A few examples where this meaning proves very broad include artifact, artificial, artifice, medical arts, and military arts. However, there are many other colloquial uses of the word, all with some relation to its etymology.

Punk or punks may refer to:

Gee Vaucher is a visual artist who was born in 1945 in Dagenham, East London.

Her work with Anarcho-punk band Crass was seminal to the 'protest art' of the 1980s. Vaucher has always seen her work as a tool for social change. In her collection of early works (1960-1997) Crass Art and Other Pre Post-Modernist Monsters, Dagenham, East London. Vaucher can be seen to have expressed her strong anarcho-pacifist and feminist views in her paintings and collage. Vaucher also uses surrealist styles and methods.

In Vaucher's second book, Animal Rites, she gives a commentary on the relationship between animals and humans, centered on the quote " All humans are animal, but some animals are more human than others."

In the foreword to her 1999 retrospective collection Crass Art and Other Pre Post-Modernist Monsters, Ian Dury writes;

She continues to design sleeves for Babel Label and has exhibited at the 96 Gillespie gallery in London. In 2007 and 2008 the Jack Hanley Gallery in San Francisco and Track 16 in Santa Monica ran exhibitions entitled "Gee Vaucher: Introspective", showing a wide selection of Vaucher's work.

Art vs. Science are a three-piece dance band from Sydney, Australia formed early in 2008. The group consists of Jim Finn on vocals and keyboards; Dan McNamee (styled as Dan Mac) on vocals, guitars and keyboards; and Dan Williams (styled as Dan W.) on drums and vocals.

In 2010, the group toured the United Kingdom in support of La Roux in March and then Groove Armada in May. The trio received three nominations at the ARIA Music Awards of 2010 for their independent extended play release, Magic Fountain And in 2011 the group won "Best Independent Release" for their debut album The Experiment.

Art vs Science formed in Sydney in early 2008, after Dan McNamee attended a Daft Punk concert in 2007 and convinced his former high school friends, Jim Finn and Dan Williams, to form an electro-pop dance band. The trio having previously played for a number of years in a rock band, Roger Explosion, together with Finn's brother Tom. As Art vs Science with Finn on vocals and keyboards; McNamee on vocals, guitars and keyboards; and Williams (who, at the time, was also a member of Philadelphia Grand Jury) on drums and vocals the band were booked to play gigs before they had created any songs.