Born in a small farm town in Germany in 1928, progressive composer Karlheinz Stockhausen found his greatest pleasure in listening to the radio with his mother and playing what he heard on the piano. He began piano lessons at the age of six. At eight, he was performing popular tunes for tips and food

20th-century music, Collage, Dense, Musique concrete

Merce Cunningham's experimental productions continue to inspire awe and controversy. Like his long-time collaborator John Cage, Cunningham produces shows based on chance arrangements of predetermined sequences to underscore the unpredictability of life itself. Whether decided by a flip of a coin or a

Chance, Collage, Deconstructive, Dense, Electronic, From the bones (release), Machinistic, Mathematical, Pure movement

Diane Arbus is called the "Wizard of Odds" because her photographic subjects have included circus freaks, nudists, mentally retarded adults, eccentrics, homeless people, orgiasts, and outcasts. Her work has been dubbed "grotesque," "hateful," and "in bad taste." Norman Mailer stated the prevailing se

Confessional poetry, Dense, Documentary photography, Expansive, Grotesque, In-your-face, Intimate, Moody, Pathos, Perverse, Sublime

The works of German painter Anselm Kiefer explore the intersection of Germany's recent history and the artist's individual experiences. The myths and realities of Nazism meet personal iconography in works of roaring emotionality that blur the line between the symbolic and the real. His theory of the

Death, Dense, Epic, Layered, Mythic, Neo-expressionism, Political, Violent, Visceral