Damien Hirst is an artist I became familiar with through an article in Fast Company titled, Most Creative People of 2009.  I was instantly captivated by his 22 ton shark preserved in phamedlahide and suspended in a modern container with an apparent weightlessness.  His work is considered highly controversial by many.  He also has an incredible project where he uses a number of these modern containers to house sequential cross sections of a cow which in total make up the entire figure.  Each of these cross sections are spaced out far enough for an observer to walk around it in 360 degrees.