More than perhaps any other artist of the 20th century, the art of Jean-Michel Basquiat continues to burn with urgency. It remains relevant, vital, undiminished by the decades since his passing. His life, though brief, encompassed the full arc of an artist who was vividly alive and embedded in the cultural moment. But like all masters, his work transformed the timely into the timeless. He went from outlaw street artist to the darling of New

If you needed one word to describe artist Damien Hirst, you couldn’t do much better than controversial. As a creator working at the top levels of our culture, he has come to define a certain punk ethos and extravagant daring that place him in a category unto himself. Much of his work focuses on death, a theme that continues to propel him. He goes beyond contemplating nothingness and instead observes the feelings it stirs inside