Shortly after arriving in Vienna to study at the Academy of Art, the 17-year-old Egon Schiele encountered the 45-year-old Gustav Klimt, then the leading figure in Austrian Art Nouveau and the Vienna avant-garde. The older painter would become Schiele's lifelong friend and mentor; his affect on Schiel

Agitated, Austrian expressionism, Dark, Erotic, Profane, Severe

If Postmodernism raises low art to the level of high art, it also allows folks who control the media to cash in on subcultural trends: Rap, grunge, vogueing, whatever. Andy Warhol made a joke of it, but Keith Haring turned the tables. When this Graffiti artist lifted his brush to the walls of subways

Cartoonish, Graffitists and cartoonists, Homoerotic, In-your-face, Kinetic, Playful, Political, Pop, Profane, Queer art

Vito Acconci, performance and video artist, has created seminal works of art in the truest sense of the word. Particularly considering his most notorious performance, "Seedbed" (1971), which involved Acconci masturbating on the Sonnabend Gallery floor. For "Seedbed" Acconci performed beneath a sloped

Body art, Bombast, Erotic, In-your-face, Perverse, Profane, Religious