He was also hugely influenced by the German artist, Joseph Beuys, after meeting him through Edinburgh gallery owner, Richard Demarco.

BBC: Obituary: George Wyllie

Raised in Vienna, Mr. Hollein was immersed in the world of art from childhood, when personalities such as Joseph Beuys and Frank Gehry would visit for dinner at the invitation of his mother, a fashion designer, and his father, an architect.

WSJ: Max Hollein Navigates Frankfurt's Museum Row

Evidently, the entire bunch of complainers has very little knowledge of actual art, and the works of people like Damien Hirst (with his cows and sharks in formaldehyde, his dismembered butterflies), Wim Delvoye (with his tattooed pigs), Joseph Beuys (and his dead hares) and the hot-this-minute Maurizio Cattelan (with his suspended horse).

FORBES: A Dead Cat Flies. But Is It Art?

If it all sounds too much, Mrs Kramlich points out that living with media art is really no different from living with fixed-image art. (The couple have works by Andy Warhol and Joseph Beuys in their mock-Tudor San Francisco home.) The difference, she adds with an eye to California's electricity troubles, is that you have an on-off switch and when the images vanish, the house is an artwork of its own.

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