"God is a smoker of Havanas," Gainsbourg used to say, excusing himself for the deadly habit that turned his voice into a raspy growl. Serge Gainsbourg somehow made everything seem cool, even smoking. Gainsbourg, the child of Russian Jewish Émigrés, was celebrated and reviled as much for his r

Cool, Grotesque, In-your-face, Sexy, Smoky, Wise assy

Agnes Martin was a Canadian-American painter, often referred to as a minimalist, although she considered herself an abstract expressionist. She was born in Macklin, Saskatchewan and moved to the United States in 1931, becoming a citizen in 1950. She studied art at Columbia University and then late

Composed, Cool, Geometric, Minimalist art, Monochromatic, Repetitive, Spare, Sublime

Kate Shepherd was born in New York City in 1961. Her paintings have been shown in galleries and museums since 1996. She superimposes a matrix of delicate lines on vibrant fields of color to depict the planar structure of interior or exterior spaces. The paintings are pared-down and bold in compositio

Architectural, Conceptual, Cool, Minimalist art, Polychromatic, Post-painterly abstraction

Sonic Youth was one of the most unlikely success stories of underground American rock in the '80s. Where contemporaries R.E.M. and Husker Du were fairly conventional in terms of song structure and melody, Sonic Youth began their career by abandoning any pretense of traditional rock & roll conventions

Atmospheric, Composed, Contemplative, Cool, Deconstructive, Dissonant, Distorted, Dreamy, Eclectic, Elegant, Expansive, Experimental, Fuzzy, Hallucinatory, Intense, Layered, Lyrical, Pioneering, Political, Pop, Psychedelic, Punk, Quirky, Rhythmic, Rough, Sensual, Slangy, Smart, Sophisticated, Sprawling, Subtle, Tense, Trippy, Urban