Polke was among the first and most well-known postwar artists to incorporate humor into his work, often taking his inspiration from comic strips and other popular amusements.
Grotesques distort and deform their subjects, often in surrealistic manner.
Works included in this group range from the abstractions of Salvador Dal and Yves Tanguy to the mutated figures of the more contemporary artists such as Francesco Clemente and David Moreno. A caricature also ridicules its subject by means of distortion, but is more satiric than surreal, often implying that the subject has a particular quality or personality trait. Jean Crotti's 1915 caricature of Marcel Duchamp exaggerates the angularity of the artist's face. A series of caricatures by various artists of Monroe Wheeler, the Museum's Director of Exhibitions and Publications for nearly thirty years, emphasizes the curator's smoothly handsome, almost simian features. The performances of conceptual artists such as Vito Acconci, John Baldessari, Peter Hutchinson, and Bruce Nauman often incorporate video either as a documentation device or as the medium itself.