Baldessari's work involves mundane objects tagged with equally unremarkable texts that often produce barks of laughter and/or cynicism from viewers. His compositions are montages of apparently unrelated visual or textual fragments from photographs, film stills, newspapers, magazines, and artworks.

Conceptual photography, In-your-face, Quirky, Visceral, Whimsical

His artistic avocations were many -- poet, novelist, painter, playwright, set designer, actor -- but Jean Cocteau's work as a filmmaker distilled his creative vision with a special lucidity. In film he could bring his Surrealist language and imagery together, making the dreamlike palpable and present

Existentialist literature, Horror, Surreal, Surrealist film, Surrealist literature, Surrealist photography, Trippy

"The choice of a new generation." It's the cheesiest!" "You are not yourself." Guess which one of these catchy slogans came from Barbara Kruger. Here's a hint: it made you paranoid. Kruger combines unsettling slogans with found or fabricated images from popular culture -- photographs from magazin

Cartoonish, In-your-face, Media art, Political, Pop, Spectral

Diane Arbus is called the "Wizard of Odds" because her photographic subjects have included circus freaks, nudists, mentally retarded adults, eccentrics, homeless people, orgiasts, and outcasts. Her work has been dubbed "grotesque," "hateful," and "in bad taste." Norman Mailer stated the prevailing se

Confessional poetry, Dense, Documentary photography, Expansive, Grotesque, In-your-face, Intimate, Moody, Pathos, Perverse, Sublime