Category: AR474 (Page 3 of 10)

I have been doing SO much research today for hours and hours because I got so into it. I’m at a point where it feels like so many ideas are floating around and themes are becoming clearer, but I don’t yet know how to articulate all of this. I spent a lot of time searching Instagram, Pinterest, and the Internet for examples of song lyric tattoos to build up my corpus, in addition to reaching out to a few of my friends who have song lyric tattoos (one got one today, which was so exciting, and her tattoo is a prime example for a lot of the things I want to talk about).

One theme I found today was a lot of people getting song lyric tattoos to connect them to another person, so one person has the first part of the lyric, and the other has the other half. I also found this adorable example of a woman who got lyrics to a song her husband wrote about her tattooed on her arm, in addition to musical notes each representing a family member. This got me thinking about the role of the visual and the text in song lyric tattoos. Some tattoos are inspired by song lyrics but don’t include the song lyrics themselves. On that note, I’ve been doing some research on how music and lyrics work together to create emotional responses and mental images (which is interesting in thinking about visualizing lyrics).

Another thing I was discovering is that people get song lyric tattoos to sort of document their life, or as Kosut describes, a biographical documentation of one’s life. One person was talking about how they just like a specific song and have memories of even just doing simple things like cooking or putting on makeup. In this way, this song has become the soundtrack to their life, which is super powerful.

I also have been contemplating this idea of fandom a lot. I was looking into how song lyric tattoos can connect people. I’ve also previously done some thinking about band t-shirts and how they serve a similar (but more temporary) purpose to song lyric tattoos. Then I started thinking about the boygenius tooth that all three members have tattooed on their wrists (to portray the lyrics from their song “Bite the Hand”) and how I remembered drawing tooth tattoos with my friends this summer because we were performing one of their songs in a talent show. I loved how that made me feel like I was part of a group of people who love the music (and whole culture around it) that has become so core to my identity. It made me feel special because it was a reference you could only truly understand if you really knew their music. I also vaguely remembered seeing that they were giving out temporary tooth tattoos in their vinyl record, which is a cool way to bond fans and include them in their shared tattoo. They also recently launched a line of tooth jewelry, serving a similar purpose. Thinking about all of this in the context of my tooth tattoos with my friends at camp, I also remembered an event we had for the campers: Taylor Swift Day. We set things up Coachella-style with a silent disco, fun food, and even a temporary tattoo and paint station. I was in charge of the paint station, and we were instructed to do hearts or the number 13 on kids’ hands. Taylor Swift used to write 13 on her hands because it’s her lucky number, and so that took off as something fans would do while attending her concerts. Wearing symbols like the tooth and the number 13 indicate to other people a certain knowledge of an artist and express a certain level of appreciation for those artists.

Anyways, these were just a bunch of my thoughts, so writing them down was really helpful. I’m going to continue exploring these interesting areas and start to organize my findings more by theme so that I can craft my presentation!

I met with Professor Plesch today to talk through my ideas, so I just wanted to keep track of that progress here. I want to work on collecting more examples for my corpus so that I can analyze them and categorize them, which will help me to structure my paper. I also need to work on narrowing down my topic to better understand the who/what/where/when/why. On the note of collecting examples, though, I was watching the first episode of a tv show called Good Girls, and an interesting case of song lyric tattoos came up. One of the main characters had a tramp stamp that said “all you need is love,” but the “love” was a heart. They robbed a grocery store that she worked at, and the manager found out it was her by seeing her tattoo. I thought it was an interesting portrayal of tattoos in media. It did get me thinking, though, about how tattoos are a part of people’s identities, and that they can be used to identify people because they are very much a part of that person. I aim to understand more about why people resonate with certain lyrics and choose to make them a part of themselves.

After watching Skin, I wasn’t sure how to feel about the film. I noticed some of the people involved in the project referring to the human body as a canvas (like they do on the TV show Ink Master); I can’t tell if this feels degrading, empowering, or both. The human body as a canvas is, in a sense, an empowering concept, because it implies that we are all capable of becoming works of art, depending on how we choose to decorate ourselves. At the same time, likening the body to a canvas is objectifying, implying that we are worthless without “valid” decorations on our person. Skin also depicted all the subjects as following basically the same life path: escaping oppressive, boring, conservative home lives (often in the suburbs), and moving to the city to be artsy, free, drug-addicted partiers. This seems unfair, and goes against what seemed to be the goal of the project, to prove that tattoos should be revered in the fine art world. It doesn’t seem wholly effective to create a contemporary art project about tattoos that just perpetuates stereotypes about tattooed people to untattooed people. In turn, this made me wonder if the goal of the project was authenticity (like the Dr. Lakra quote we discussed). However, if the film sought to portray these tattooed peoples’ “real” lives, it didn’t come off that way to me because this “authenticity” conformed to a predetermined narrative. 

I think I might be able to explore authenticity in my research on tattoos and the music industry. I love discovering new music, and have found myself more and more drawn to music that feels really authentic to me. To the people around me, I think this pursuit of authenticity just comes off as me listening to more amateur, lo-fi, worse-sounding music. For me, listening to “DIY”-sounding music makes me feel more connected to the artist, and the emotions they are portraying. I feel closer to them, and thus their message, without the wall of high-tech production to create separation. I think that, in a roundabout way, tattoos are very similar. They are not seen as “fine” art – in my strange music analogy, they would be lo-fi. So, would musicians (especially those involved in non-mainstream subcultures) be more drawn to tattoos because they feel like an authentic expression in the same way as their music?

I did my presentation on Chapter 9 of Caplan’s textbook, which was about class and tattoos in Victorian Britain. The role of consumerism in creating social norms was central to the article and brought up a central question about the commodification of the body. Tattooing is so distinct as a form of art, cultivating an art object out of the body. The role of agency in this, making the body objectified by the tattooist but subject in choosing the modification, is especially interesting to me. Based off of our previous class discussions, this interplay of power is usually used as a form of resistance, liberation, or at least an assertion of individuality. However, in the context of the article, tattoos weren’t always exercised as a form of personal liberty. They functioned more as tangible markers of an abstract social exchange, standing in for more material forms of wealth (*talking about the British aristocracy, not the sailors).

The role of tattooing among wealthy British patrons made me think about how the culture of the oppressed is often co-opted by the oppressor as a tool of control. I recently watched “Paris is Burning,” a film about drag culture in NYC during the 1980s, and part of the film is about the appropriation of queer culture by mainstream, cis-gendered, and heterosexual celebrities. For lower-class citizens that had been ostracized or shamed by mainstream culture, tattoos served as a sort of token that helped mark their belonging to a certain group. Wealthy aristocrats took this tradition and warped it, using the stigma and perceived deviance that was associated with tattooing to create a form of “deep play.” This is a term used by Clifford Geertz (p. 136) to describe the irrational and often dangerous behavior that provides entertainment or satisfaction. Because tattooing is so risky, both medically and socially, and didn’t have any necessary benefits, it could be categorized as deep play. I feel like this connects to the 19th century French (and probably British too?) obsession with “the spectacle,” or the shocking and avant garde forms of art that provided entertainment for the wealthy upper classes. I remember learning about tours of the sewers and catacombs that the aristocracy would go on, simply for a new and shocking experience. Tattoos seemed to function in a similar way, being exciting and tantalizing, while also symbolizing extreme wealth and the capacity for leisure (long amounts of time required for the actual tattoo and the recovery from it). There’s a quote in the chapter (p. 153) that says “the impulse for consumption ran deeper than the outward display and emulation of fashionable clothing” and that tattooing “indicated the depth to which economic relations infiltrated the tissues of the body.” It was a clear display of extravagant and deeply internalized consumerism, which is really different from how we’ve discussed it in the past.

When thinking about the commodification of the body among the wealthy, it’s really interesting to consider the other end of the spectrum. We’ve talked (and read) a lot about how the most valuable and mobile possession is the body itself, and is the only absolutely guaranteed property. For people who did not or could not own any material items, whether they were enslaved, in jail, at sea, or in the military, the body was a primary and precious object. It maintained a sense of individuality, but also served as a canvas for memory. Tattoos of loved ones, events, and markers of identity were extremely common among the lower class, and eventually turned into a symbol of culture for people who were not part of mainstream consumerism. So, whether one had too much and objects were meaningless, or too little and objects meant too much, tattoos were crucial in transcending the dependence on material objects.

I have been reading Roald Dahl since I was a small child, so I was excited to read his short story mentioned at the beginning of the reading, Skin. It portrayed very well the socioeconomic nuances of tattoos within the broader context of art. From a literary perspective, I thought it was interesting how Dahl had the old man and young boy’s life trajectories be general opposites of each other. But it is also important to point out that the man never seems to have enjoyed the success of the young boy even at his peak. He never attracts the attention of the Parisienne elite, he never has his work exhibited on the Rue de Rivoli, and he is never as wealthy. This establishes a ceiling to the financial and artistic success of tattoos, a core theme for the rest of the reading, as well as the documentary by Ryan Hope, also called Skin.

            Another story line from Dahl’s Skin I thought interesting was the debate of how to obtain, preserve, and monetize the tattoo on the old man’s back. The dealer completely disregards the old man as an individual and cares only about the tattoo and the skin it is on, offering to hire a surgeon to remove the skin and tattoo. In contrast, the tall stranger offers to accommodate and pamper the old man, allowing him to become a living exhibit, living in a hotel while allowing the guests to see his tattoo. For the dealer, the old man is worthless, and all the value is held in the tattoo. The stranger, however, apparently sees that the tattoo has value even when it is still on the old man’s back and the old man is still alive. The two men each delineate the two sides of the argument of where the tattoo stops and starts, another theme of both the reading and the documentary.

            The old man eventually listens to the stranger but unfortunately, it seems the stranger was lying and has done exactly what the dealer said he would do. The tattoo shows up for sale in Buenos Aires “nicely framed and heavily varnished.” These additions tell a crucial story of how the stranger thinks the tattoo should be exhibited. A tattoo on the body has no true frame or borders. A frame closes off a painting from the environment while a frameless tattoo can interact with the body it’s on. The addition of varnish is a rejection of the visual qualities of skin and an attempt to achieve the look of a painting. The stranger shows a lack of appreciation for how skin looks and how tattoos work. An intrinsic quality of a tattoo is how it sits under the upper layers of skin which may cause it to look dull. That is important context which makes a tattoo a tattoo. A tattoo, essentially by definition, will never have the vividity and clarity of a painting. This attempt to achieve the look of a painting also exposes the stranger’s opinion on tattoos compared to paintings. He believed that the tattoo has more value when it is varnished like a painting, that paintings are more valuable than tattoos. That paintings are more of an art form than tattoos. This (incorrect) idea that one can stratify artistic methods and mediums based on their validity as an art form is the last of the themes which I resonated with strongly during the reading and documentary.

            While reading Inkside Out and about artists’ attempts to exhibit their work in galleries, it reminded me of an article I read about tattoo artists beginning to sell their tattoos as NFTs. Whether a gallery or an NFT, I disagree with this developing popularity of removing tattoos from their intended context. I believe the tattoo, the skin, the individual, and even the individual’s environment each contribute meaning to the tattoo as a whole. Cropping out these important elements as you please so you can exhibit your work more comfortably detracts from the beauty of tattooing as an art form. The same tattoo motifs and designs exist on multitudes of people but each person’s individual story contributes to each tattoo, making it something truly unique. Tattoos were not meant to be viewed straight on, perfectly lit or edited, framed either literally by an actual frame, or figuratively by the meticulously curated environment of a gallery. Instead, observing a tattoo can be a lengthy, elusive, and somewhat intimate process. I think this experience of initially catching a glimpse of a tattoo, eventually seeing it fully, and then maybe asking a person about their tattoo is a beautiful and integral part of “consuming” tattoos. Each time you uncover more information about the tattoo, the tattoo accumulates more meaning and value. And then maybe a tattoo on someone is dangerously close to a fresh scar or burn and now a story is told of a delicate dance between intentional and accidental modifications to the skin, allowing you to learn more about the person. Tattoos are more than the ink. They are elements of a story that is very much perpetually being told. Tattoos can only enjoy full meaning outside the perfect conditions of a gallery. Tattoos are living things not meant to be preserved or caged, but instead observed in their original context.

            While I do understand tattoo artists attempts to validate their tattoos as art by putting it in the same context as works more readily accepted as fine art, I think this thinking shows a fundamental understanding of how art is meant to be consumed, as well as the importance of different mediums filling different niches, demanding different experiences. While museums are an amazing way to exhibit art on a large scale to a large audience and allow guests to fully understand an artist’s portfolio or an entire movement, it is not the pinnacle of how art should or can be consumed. An integral component of art, in my opinion, is the communication between the artist, the art, and the audience. Museums are one way to cast a wide net and communicate with a large number of people. Another option is exhibiting art in an environment that communicates with fewer people, but arguably on a much deeper level. There are multiple ways to communicate your art to an audience, each with their own nuances and purposes, but none are subjectively better than the other. Rather, it is important to understand what you are trying to communicate and choose the method of communication that best allows you to do that. Part of being a tattoo artist is understanding and investing in the idea that your tattoo and art will be communicated to an audience through personal interaction. It is important to fully buy into that and celebrate that, rather than diminish the art by trying to transplant the ink from a person’s skin into a gallery. While tattoo artists can exhibit their work in a museum, it should not be with the desire to earn respect as an artist or to reach some artistic pinnacle, because that’s not what museums are or should be for. It should be with the intent to take advantage of the fact that museums are a great way to reach a large audience. Artists should not rank the various ways to view or consume art, but instead they should see each one as a tool to augment the way they can communicate. Rather than looking to museums and galleries and feeling inferior as an artist, tattoo artists should instead celebrate their niche and take advantage of the fact that their method of communication is much more personal, lingering, and even whimsical.

I had a lot of fun researching Duke Riley and got very into his style and his work. I think it’s really cool how much he focuses on nautical themes but also relating that to environmental issues, such as the trash in our oceans. His work — both visual arts and tattoos — is very influenced by scrimshaw, which you can see in the technique he uses (black outlines, a little boxy, etched). I also thought it was cool that he painted over cassette tapes and etched song lyrics and scrimshaw-like designs representing the music the cassette tape would play. I was really excited about this connection to my project!

Ryan Hope’s Skin [Film] is an examination and analysis into tattoo culture as a form of high art. The film merges famous, well-known artists like Jeff Koons with famous tattoo artists such as Damien Hirst, to design and in a way, distribute works of art to the public in a contemporary art project. The film shows at least six individuals who participate in this project and also shows some of the tattoo artists speaking on the matter. Something that truly resonates with me were the parting words of the last participant who spoke in the video, 31 year old Conrad Lochner, who described that this project was, in a way, “representing some sort of weird synthesis between two genres previously segregated” (Skin 38:36). Much of what this film did was depict a sense of how the contemporary art world is slowly accepting and realizing the potential of tattoos as a form of fine art. I will say that I felt like the participants who were selected, at least the ones who were shown and spoke in the film, seemed to have either criminal history or an extreme change in their life, the mention of drugs or alcohol seemed to be a present statement throughout each of the little biographies given by the participants, which I felt gave off the classic stereotype of who gets tattoos. I think the reason that this bothered me was because of the vast diversity in who chooses to get tattooed and that the individuals shown in that film all seemed to be very “stereotypical,” but maybe my understanding became jumbled.

To tie this in with Mifflin’s reading, I chose to do my artist presentation on Shelley Jackson, who was mentioned through the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive’s showing of Shelley Jackson’s “Skin,” a short story tattooed on volunteers word by word as she traveled the world. Mifflin primarily concentrates on the reasons for why tattoos have not gained recognition in the art world. The obvious reasons being the morality of selling someone as a work of art in addition to the ethical judgment of exhibiting a work that is a living, breathing, and functioning person. The last paragraph of this reading took note of the intersection of the contemporary art world and tattoo culture through the incorporation of “sub-legitimate tattoo imagery into [many visual artists’] work” and vice versa (Mifflin 97). Mifflin points out the inevitable interconnection of the tattoo culture and the art world by expressing the presence of art movements or styles like Cubism or tattoo techniques shown in both contemporary visual artists’ works and contemporary tattoo artists and their work.

Mifflin’s article reminded me of all the times I have heard the people around me say that tattoos aren’t art. It’s interesting because what separates tattoos from the traditional art we see is the canvas. The idea is the same. The image was still made from someone that put in time and dedication to improver their art. The only difference is that the art of tattoo artists get put onto people meanwhile traditional artists place theirs on some form of paper. Despite this little difference, it was interesting to read about the different people that try to find ways to make tattoos be accepted in what I would consider the “fine art community.” The article stated that one of the main reason’s for people’s aversion to the inclusion of tattoos is because it is unclear how they should go about being displayed. Some promise their skin upon death and others signed a contract that would require them to be exhibited. It’s definitely shaping up to be an interesting dilemma with no clear answer.

In addition to reading Mifflin, I created a presentation on Kim Joon, a South Korean artist mentioned in Mifflin’s article. I did some external research on him and I found that he sees tattoos as a way of representing the internal in art. In other words, he saw tattoos as a way to externalize the identities of the figures he makes. Seeing his works and how he described the meaning of the tattoos he draws, I started to think more on how tattoos could be displayed without the physical tattooed bodies being present.

In preparation for this class session, I researched the work of tattoo artist Yann Black. When I looked at the list of artists I could focus on for this presentation, Yann Black’s work immediately stood out to me. I read that his background is in graphic design and animation; he got his art degree before pursuing tattooing. I think this path to the career is evident in his tattoos, which look very artsy and sketchy, almost as if they were designed for paper rather than skin. At the same time, this “designed for paper” quality of Yann Black’s tattoos makes them all the more interesting. His style is not something I see very often if at all in tattooing, so his designs feel bright and refreshing. 

In terms of my research topic, I ended up stumbling upon a YouTube channel, GQ, that has a series of videos where celebrities talk about their tattoos. Among these celebrities are several musicians, so I am super excited to go through these videos and take notes on them as primary sources. Before YouTube recommended this video series to me, I was struggling to find interviews with artists about their tattoos – most articles I found just speculated about the meanings behind musicians’ tattoos without any input from the musicians themselves. 

I found Atkinsons work interesting and easy to read. His methods of interviewing people helped to show individuality but also how some ideas were the same among different people. If I had enough time, I would’ve loved to interview people with tattoos. The idea that the process of tattooing as an important part seemed like a no-brainer to me. But perhaps it is because we have been discussing the importance of the pain and ritual-like process as part of getting a tattoo. I thought the compilation of negative reaction interviews was the most interesting to read because its hard to think that people will end relationships because of tattoos they got on their own body (and maybe the tattoo itself? For example, I don’t think I could continue to be friends with someone with a rising sun or nazi symbol. )But breaking a friendship because jealousy or because it breaks the image you had of that person don’t seem like justifible reasons. In the end is all about the individuals’ beliefs and relationship with the tattooed person although sometimes the reactions seem to be out of nowhere. This reminded me of those tattoo shows where pairs choose tattoos for each other and they always end up being really bad in placement and imagery.