As a young man, Xu Bing developed an odd relationship to language. The son of a professor and a librarian, he spent his early years surrounded by books that he could not read. His school years coincided with the Cultural Revolution, when he and other children were sent off to camps to learn Mao's new

Absurd, Expatriate or third space artists, Subtle, Witty

In 1988, "Sex, Lies, and Videotape" asked all the right questions about secrecy, technology, and female orgasm. The elite clan at Cannes awarded the maverick production the Palm d'Or, and mainstream theaters opened their doors to Andie McDowell asking the camera -- and the mainstream audiences behind

Absurd, Melancholy, Repetition, Whimsical

From a small town in Sicily called (prophetically?) Chaos, there emerged one of the comic geniuses of modern European drama. Luigi Pirandello was always ahead of his time, scandalizing hoi polloi with ultra-Modernist experiments in structure, narrative, and staging. The grandfather of the absurd '- I

Absurd, Anxiety, Flux, Layered, Theater of the grotesque (italy)

"All I wanted was to say honestly to people: 'Have a look at yourselves and see how bad and dreary your lives are!' The important thing is that people realize that, for when they do, they will most certainly create another and better life for themselves." Here we find the very essence of Chekhov

Absurd, Dark, Ironic, Melancholy, Pathos, Realist theater