Cubism is a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In cubist artworks, objects are broken up, analyzed, and re-assembled in an abstracted form—instead of depicting objects from one viewpoint, the artist depicts the subject from a multitude of viewpoints to represent the subject in a greater context. Often the surfaces intersect at seemingly random angles, removing a coherent sense of depth. The background and object planes interpenetrate one another to create the shallow ambiguous space, one of cubism's distinct characteristics.

The beginnings of Cubism have been dated between 1907 and 1911. The question of when Cubism began depends on the questions of how it can be defined, what distinguishes Cubist art and who developed it first. Pablo Picasso's 1907 painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon has often been considered a proto-Cubist work. Georges Braque's 1908 Houses at L’Estaque (and related works) prompted Vauxcelles' cubes reference. Gertrude Stein referred to landscapes made by Picasso in 1909, such as Reservoir at Horta de Ebroas, as the first Cubist paintings. The first organized group exhibition by Cubists took place at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris during the spring of 1911 in a room called ‘Salle 41’; it included works by Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Fernand Léger, Robert Delaunay and Henri Le Fauconnier, yet no works by Picasso and Braque were exhibited.

Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso, known as Pablo Picasso (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈpaβlo piˈkaso], 25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973), was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the greatest and most influential artists of the 20th century, he is widely known for co-founding the Cubist movement, the invention of constructed sculpture, the co-invention of collage, and for the wide variety of styles that he helped develop and explore. Among his most famous works are the proto-Cubist Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907), and Guernica (1937), a portrayal of the German bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War.

Picasso, Henri Matisse and Marcel Duchamp are commonly regarded as the three artists who most defined the revolutionary developments in the plastic arts in the opening decades of the 20th century, responsible for significant developments in painting, sculpture, printmaking and ceramics.

Tom Vasel (born on September 8, 1976) is a well known podcaster and reviewer of board games. Vasel co-hosts a long-running and popular gaming podcast titled The Dice Tower, and as of 2011^[update] has posted over 1200 reviews on the internet database BoardGameGeek.

As of August 2003^[update], Vasel taught mathematics at the International Christian School in Uijeongbu. He assumed the role of Pastor of Uijongbu Baptist Church, succeeding Pastor Rick Kelley in March 2007. After leaving South Korea, he has worked as a teacher in Florida.

Since May 2005, Vasel has co-hosted The Dice Tower, a podcast about board games and wargames. Originally, Vasel represented players who prefer designer games, while Joe Steadman advocated for those who prefer wargames. Steadman left the show in May 2006 after the 50th episode. Vasel, hosting alone with occasional input from Sam Healey for a few shows, rearranged the format to include recorded segments by guest reviewers and players. Gradually Healey began to take a larger role and was eventually promoted to co-host. Healey has since left the show and been replaced by the show's voice-over man, Eric Summerer.

Tatiana Stepa (b. April 21, 1963, Lupeni, Hunedoara County — d. August 7, 2009, Bucharest) was a Romanian folk singer. She died after a long illness due to cancer.

Please find more information about Tatiana Stepa and her biography here: http://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatiana_Stepa

Alan Vega (born Boruch Alan Bermowitz on June 23, 1938) is an American vocalist, primarily known for his work with electronic protopunk duo, Suicide. He is also an established sculptor.

Alan Bermowitz was raised in a Jewish household in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. In the late 1950s he attended Brooklyn College, where he studied both physics and fine art, studying painting and drawing under Ad Reinhardt and Kurt Seligmann and graduating in 1960. In the 60s he became involved with the Art Workers' Coalition, a radical artists group that harassed museums, once barricading the Museum of Modern Art. In 1969 funding from the New York State Council on the Arts made possible the founding of MUSEUM:A Project of Living Artists – an artist-run 24 hour multimedia gallery at 729 Broadway in Manhattan. Calling himself Alan Suicide, he graduated from painting to light sculptures, many constructed of electronic debris. He gained a residency at the OK Harris Gallery in SoHo where he continued to exhibit until 1975.Barbara Gladstone continued to show his work into the 80s.