Rainald Maria Goetz (born 1954) is a German author, playwright and essayist.

After studying History and Medicine in Munich and earning a grade (Ph. D. and M.D) in each, he soon concentrated on his writing.

With his first works, especially his novel "Irre" ("Crazy" or "Mad"), published in 1983, he became a cult author for the intellectual left. To the delight of his fans and the dismay of some critics he mixed neo-expressionist writing with social realism in the vein of Alfred Döblin and the fast pace of British pop writers like Julie Burchill. During a televised literary tournament in 1983, Goetz slit his own forehead with a razor blade and let the blood run down his face until he finished reading.http://bachmannpreis.orf.at/25_jahre/1983/start_1983.htm

Goetz made his name as an enthusiastic observer of media and pop culture. He embraced avant-garde^{[citation needed]} philosophers like Foucault and Luhmann as well as the DJs of the techno movement, especially Sven Väth.

He can probably claim to be one of the earliest prominent bloggers, having written a daily diary on the web in 1998-99 called Abfall für alle ("trash for everybody"), which eventually was published as a book.

Rainald was an abbot of Abbot of Abingdon.

Rainald was a former monk of Jumièges who was King William I's chaplain when he was appointed Abbot of Abingdon by him in 1084. He died in Normandy in 1097.

Harald Franz Schmidt (born August 18, 1957 in Neu-Ulm, Bavaria) is a German actor, writer, comedian and television entertainer best known as host of two popular German late-night shows.

As son of refugees who fled from South Moravia (now Czech Republic) in 1945, Schmidt spent his youth in Swabian Nürtingen, where he went to grammar school. Due to his strict Catholic upbringing he devoted time to the Roman Catholic church, serving as choirmaster and playing the organ.

At the age of 21, Schmidt went to Stuttgart to attend drama school for three years. After that, he gained on-stage experience at Städtische Bühne (Municipal Stage) in Augsburg. His first role was that of the 2nd Mamaluke in Lessing's Nathan the Wise. In 1984, Harald Schmidt became a text writer for the cabaret Kom(m)ödchen in Düsseldorf and in 1986, was honoured as "Best Newcomer cabaret artist" and toured through Germany with his own show.

Before long, TV noticed the talented young comedian and in 1988 Schmidt began to host his first TV show, MAZ ab. This was followed by shows like Psst! and Schmidteinander, but the biggest boost to his career occurred in 1992, when he started hosting the popular Saturday night show, Verstehen Sie Spaß? (a variation of Candid Camera). Schmidt was awarded Germany's most important TV award, "Adolf-Grimme-Preis", which would be followed by many others. Just one year later, he was honoured as the "Entertainer of the year" and awarded the famous Bambi award and the Golden Camera.

Diedrich Diederichsen (born August 15, 1957) is a German author, music journalist and cultural critic. He is one of Germany′s most renowned intellectual writers at the crossroads of the arts, politics, and pop culture.

Diedrich Diederichsen was born and grew up in Hamburg where he worked as a music journalist and editor of the German Sounds magazine in the heyday of Punk and New Wave from 1979 to 1983. Until the 1990s he was then the editor-in-chief of the influential subculture magazine Spex in Cologne. Diederichsen worked as visiting professor in Frankfurt am Main, Stuttgart, Pasadena, Offenbach am Main, Gießen, Weimar, Bremen, Vienna, St. Louis, Cologne, Los Angeles and Gainesville. After teaching at the Merz Academy in Stuttgart for several years, he became Professor for Theory, Practice and Communication of Contemporary Art at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in 2006.

Diedrich Diederichsen is a prolific writer whose articles and texts are printed in a variety of periodicals and publications. Newspapers and magazines with contributions by Diedrich Diederichsen include Texte zur Kunst, Die Zeit, die tageszeitung, Der Tagesspiegel, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Theater heute, Artscribe, Artforum, and Frieze.

Jeffrey "Jeff" Koons (born January 21, 1955) is an American artist known for his reproductions of banal objects—such as balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror finish surfaces. He lives and works in New York City and his hometown York, Pennsylvania.

Koons' work has sold for substantial sums of money including at least one world record auction price for a work by a living artist. The largest sum known to be paid for a work by Koons is Balloon flower (Magenta) which was sold for £12,921,250 (US$25,765,204) at Christie's London on June 30, 2008 (Lot 00012) in the Post-War & Contemporary Art Evening Sale.

Critics are sharply divided in their views of Koons. Some view his work as pioneering and of major art-historical importance. Others dismiss his work as kitsch: crass and based on cynical self-merchandising. Koons has stated that there are no hidden meanings in his works, nor any critiques.

Koons was born in York, Pennsylvania. His father Henry Koons was a furniture dealer and interior decorator; his mother Gloria, a housewife and seamstress. As a child he went door to door after school selling gift-wrapping paper and candy to earn pocket-money. As a teenager he revered Salvador Dalí, to the extent that he visited him at the St. Regis Hotel in New York City. Koons studied painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Maryland Institute College of Art. While a visiting student at the Art Institute, Koons met the artist Ed Paschke, who became a major influence and for whom he worked as a studio assistant late 1970s. After college, he worked at the membership desk of the Museum of Modern Art and as a Wall Street commodities broker while establishing himself as an artist.