Artist and Composer Mark Kostabi was born in Los Angeles in 1960 to Estonian immigrants. He was raised in Whittier, California and studied drawing and painting at California State University, Fullerton.

In 1982 he moved to New York and by 1984 became a leading figure of the East Village art movement. He developed a provocative media persona by publishing self-interviews that commented on the commodification of contemporary art. In 1988 he founded Kostabi World -- a studio, gallery and office complex known for openly employing painting assistants and idea people.

Retrospective exhibitions of his work have been held at the Mitsukoshi Museum in Tokyo (1992) and the Art Museum of Estonia in Tallinn (1998). Kostabi's work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, The National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome and the Groninger Museum in Holland. His permanent public works include a mural in the Palazzo dei Priori in Arezzo, Italy and a large bronze sculpture, "To See Through is Not to See Into", in the central square of San Benedetto del Tronto, Italy.

More biographical details can be found on the artist's website
www.kostabi.com - bio