Robert Frank is among the most important living photographers, but to say this is to understate the self-evident. At the same time, it seems ironic to articulate the importance of an artist who is so indifferent to success and so suspicious of whatever is well regarded. Frank's work chronicles th

Beats, Contemplative, Documentary photography, Intimate, Melancholy, Minimal, Open-ended, Sublime

The bleakest, filthiest junkhouse in the mansion of rock 'n' roll serves as a crash pad to the memory of this band, which romanticized every deadly vice and self-destructive habit known to man. Founded in the early 1960s by Lou Reed, an educated Jewish junkie, and the classical violist John Cale, the

Agitated, Anxiety, Distorted, Fuzzy, Minimal, Moody, Noise rock/art rock, Psychedelic, Religious, Spare, Tense

Wary friend of Existentialism and gentle foe of nature's illusions, Irish novelist, poet, and playwright Samuel Beckett is one of the foremost artists of the twentieth century, and certainly one of the most influential. Awarded the Nobel Prize in 1969 against his more modest wishes, Beckett specializ

Absurd, Depressive, Existentialist literature, Minimal, Modernist literature, Repetition, Repetitive, Theater of the absurd

Ray's primary thematic concerns center around containment, integration, isolation, and self-sufficiency. A leader in Conceptual Realism, Ray's best work offers a metaphor for the gap between the literal and the symbolic (or the known and the unknown). His art is compelling in its representation

Grotesque, Homoerotic, Minimal, Modern sculpture, Perverse, Phallic, Quirky, Surreal