Georgina Starr shows regularly at Anthony Reynolds Gallery in London, where she lives, and at Barbara Gladstone Gallery in New York. Her most recent exhibition, “Tuberama,” was presented at Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, England.

Jim Isermann (seated above in a Panton chair) is an artist based in Southern California. He is represented by Richard Telles Fine Art in Los Angeles and Feature in New York. “Fifteen,” a major survey of his work, opens at the Santa Monica Museum of Art on April 1. Photo: Fredrik Nilsen

Elizabeth Peyton is a painter who lives in New York, where she shows at Gavin Brown's Enterprise. Her work was the subject of a survey exhibition last year at the Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Basel.

Darius James, the author of Negrophobia (St. Martin’s, 1992) and That’s Blaxploitation!: Roots of the Baadasssss ’Tude (St. Martin’s, 1995), currently resides in Berlin, where he is a foreign correspondent for Code: The Style Magazine for Men of Color. At work on his second novel, The Last American Nigger, Mr. James is also preparing a project on disinformation technology for Expo 2000, which will be held in Hannover, Germany, next year.

Jeffrey Vallance is an artist who divides his time between Las Vegas and Lapland. Represented by Rosamund Felsen Gallery in Santa Monica, California, he has most recently shown in solo exhibitions at Lehmann Maupin in New York and Galerie Praz-Delavallade in Paris. A book of his collected writings, The World of Jeffrey Vallance, was published by Art Issue Press, Los Angeles, in 1994. Mr. Vallance is currently Professor of International Professional Art at Umeå University, Sweden.

Jim Shaw is a Los Angeles-based artist represented by Metro Pictures in New York. A collection of his drawings, Dreams, was published in 1995 (Smart Art Press). In addition to his work as an artist, he served as the animation director for Nightmare on Elm Street 4, in which he also played the part of a teenage soul escaping from the neck of the just decapitated Freddy Krueger.

John Waters is a filmmaker and artist who divides his time between Baltimore and New York. His film Pecker opened nationwide in September. His photographs were recently published in John Waters: Director's Cut (Scalo). Photo: Greg Gorman.

Karen Kilimnik is a Philadelphia-based artist represented by 303 Gallery in New York. Her work was most recently seen in a solo exhibition at Kunsthalle Zürich, with a catalogue copublished by Edition Patrick Frey.

Peter Halley is an artist and publisher of Index magazine. A retrospective of his work, “Peter Halley: Painting as Sociogram, 1981-1987,” was recently held at Kitakyushu Municipal Museum in Japan. His prints were recently on view in “New Concepts in Printmaking I” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

London-based artist duo Jake and Dinos Chapman exhibit regularly at the Victoria Miro Gallery. Their work was recently featured in “Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection” at the Royal Academy of Arts.

Thomas Frank is a contributing reporter to the Washington Post, The Nation, and In These Times, and editor-in-chief of The Baffler. His most recent book is The Conquest of Cool (University of Chicago Press, 1997).

Andrew Hultkrans is a frequent contributor to Artforum.