Artists often talk about how they hope their work will fundamentally transform the way their audience thinks, perceives, or experiences reality. As members of that monolithic cultural phenomenon "the audience," we should, perhaps, wonder what certain works are doing to our minds. One piece in particu
Yes, the band does take its name from the rapid eye movement (REM) phase of sleep, the phase in which we dream. This is totally appropriate, for the band's sound has a muffled texture, the lyrics are not quite distinguishable, and when decipherable, are opaque in meaning. This creates a dreamy yet cr
The pioneer of American Pop art began using mass-media images in his work in the mid-1950s. His use of appropriated newspaper and magazine images and found objects is central to his aesthetic theory: "Painting relates to both art and life. Neither can be made. I try to act in that gap between the two
Jimi Hendrix was a leftie. But rather than use a left-handed guitar, he simply used a right-handed one upside down. Perhaps this is an appropriate figure for his approach to music: Hendrix took matters in hand and twisted them to meet his very personal vision of the world. When he revisits a blues cl