When Jacques Lacan announced a "return to Freud" in the early 1950s, Sartre and Camus shuddered with existential angst inside the fortress they had built around the rational mind. Indeed, the emergence of Lacan, with his emphasis on unconscious desires, spelled the downfall of Existentialism, the phi

Clever, Death, Intense, Perverse, Phallic, Psychoanalysis, Structuralism, Sublime

In the '70s and early '80s, ballet in America became, fleetingly, a pinnacle of popularized glamor. The blinding star of this bright moment was Mikhail Baryshnikov, known even to philistines as the charismatic Misha. He swiftly became the saving grace of ballet's lagging box office after critic Clive

Charming, Clean, Elegant, Implosive, Phallic, Physical force, Soviet ballet: the bolshoi and the kirov

In the mid-'80s, Pina Bausch's Dance Theater Wuppertal, from Germany, began to make a racket on the international scene with exhaustive, often violent forays into sex and gender. One person paying special attention was Lloyd Newson. Unhappy with the way dance emphasized technique at the cost of meani

Athleticism, Body politic/identity dance, Homoerotic, In-your-face, Masculine, Phallic, Physical force

About the drama between good and evil, the editors of the Catholic Encyclopedia are expert; and about Aubrey Beardsley, regularly found at the side of the goddess of indecency fanning her with a gigantic palm leaf, they have this to say: "He was unable to withstand the desire to do clever, mischievou

Art nouveau design, Arts & crafts design, Cartoonish, Erotic, Funny, Huge, Mythic, Perverse, Phallic