The New York-based Guerrilla Girls (self-styled "conscience of the art world") use humor, renegade tactics, and the element of surprise to spread their indictment of sexism and racism in both the art world and the culture at large. Oh yes, and they wear scary gorilla masks. Founded in 1985, they have

Angry, Bad girl art, Enigmatic, Feminist, In-your-face, Media art, Political, Rebel, Women's literature

Artists often talk about how they hope their work will fundamentally transform the way their audience thinks, perceives, or experiences reality. As members of that monolithic cultural phenomenon "the audience," we should, perhaps, wonder what certain works are doing to our minds. One piece in particu

Deconstructive, Electronic, Enigmatic, Hallucinatory, Improvised, Kaleidoscopic, Machinistic, Net art, Quirky, Technology

A minimalist jazz pianist who took bebop to even higher heights, Thelonious Sphere Monk was a unique character and a maverick in the music industry. How else can we describe a man who kept his grand piano in his kitchen? Not interested in using his music to please people, Monk strove to discover ways

Beats, Bebop, Enigmatic, Improvised, Loose, Playful, Quirky, Slangy

Peter Eisenman was the leader of a loosely knit group of New York architects, called the New York Five (John Hejduk, Michael Graves, Charles Gwathmey, and Richard Meier rounded out the five), who made an effort to introduce a theory and artistry of architecture as rigorous as that of the European ava

Deconstructive, Deconstructivism, Enigmatic, Five architects, Intense, Kaleidoscopic, Smart