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. In 1988 he painted a mural in the Palazzo dei Priori in Arezzo, Italy and completed a commissioned public sculpture "To See Through is Not to See Into", for the city of San Benedetto del Tronto, Italy. Kostabi's music has been performed in New York, Japan, Italy and Estonia by orchestras and soloists including Rein Rannap, Kristjan Jarvi, Maano Manni, the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, and Kostabi himself. His first CD, I Did It Steinway, of solo piano music composed and performed by himself, was released in 1998.

Kostabi has designed album covers (Guns 'N' Roses' Use Your Illusion, Ramones' Adios Amigos) and numerous products including a Swatch watch, limited-edition vases, and computer accessories. Kostabi has been profiled on 60 Minutes, Eye to Eye with Connie Chung, A Current Affair, Nightwatch (with Charlie Rose), The Oprah Winfrey Show, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, Nonsolomoda, West 57th, CNN, MTV and numerous television programs throughout Europe and Japan. In print he has been featured in The New York Times, People, Vogue, The Face, Playboy, Forbes, New York Magazine, Domus, Artforum, Art in America, ARTnews, Flash Art, Arte, Arte In and Teme Celeste.

Kostabi produces a bi-weekly cable TV show, Inside Kostabi in Manhattan. He writes an advice column for artists, Ask Mark Kostabi, for Artnet.com and a bi-monthly "Artist's Pick" column for Shout Magazine. Kostabi lectures regularly worldwide and has published nine books, including Sadness Because the Video Rental Store Was Closed, Kostabi: The Early Years, Conversations with Kostabi and The Rhythm of Inspiration.