Alvar Aalto was one of Finland's first Modernists. His unique architectural style is characterized by asymmetry, curved lines, and contrasting natural materials. His early works were flavored with a "heroic functionalism" that was based around the idea that a structure's use should determine its form
As a dancer, teacher, and choreographer of almost mythic stature, Martha Graham loomed over American dance. She created a technique that married energetic force to form; an entire new dance vocabulary resulted from her study of the dynamics of breath. Calling her dance creations "a graph of the heart
If you walk into a room and find everything you held dear in childhood degraded, chances are it's a Paul McCarthy installation. McCarthy is known for shocking, sexually charged pieces that feature benign cartoon and pop-culture characters -- Olive Oyl and Santa Claus, among others -- in a bacchanalia
American sculptor and Conceptual artist Kiki Smith is known for looking at the human form from the inside out. One example is her sculpture consisting of a pair of life-size wax nudes: a man and a woman, dangling side by side as if crucified. The figures, with their yellowed skin, blank faces, and dr