Tattoo’s, and the artists who create them, have evolved over time and place. Now Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum is hosting an exhibit that celebrates the form.
“I think they are technically great artists and extremely creative,”
‘Tattoos: Ritual, Identity, Obsession, Art” is the name of the show, and the hope is it will follow the success it had in its debut in France.
The show’s curators, also the founders of the magazine, ‘HEY! Modern Art & Pop Culture‘ are the couple known as Anne & Julien. In its 2014 – 15 run at the musée du Quai Branly in Paris the exhibit drew record crowds.
Stéphane Martin is president of the Branly. In Toronto for the preview, he told CBC Arts reporter Nigel Hunt that he was impressed by the skills of tattoo artists and surprised at how seriously they take their art. “I think they are technically great artists and extremely creative,” he said.
“cure, honour, marginalize, control, punish, enhance, or demean the bearer,”
It was Anne & Julien who made it possible to feature the combination of art and sculpture that tattoos can be. The pair found the perfect display technique in the work of a prop artist who was creating silicone limbs and torsos for zombie films. With the same density as human flesh the pieces provide the ideal canvas.
The exhibit features tattoos in their variety of roles from marks to “cure, honour, marginalize, control, punish, enhance, or demean the bearer,” and it provides a context, from the origins in antiquity in places such as China, Japan, Borneo, New Zealand and the U.S., to modern practices around the world.
New ROM director
The tatto exhibit opens in tandem with the arrival of the ROM’s new Director and CEO, Josh Basseches. “This is a wonderful first show for me,” he told CBC News. “If I’d had the opportunity to pick it I would have picked it because it’s the type of show that does many of the things I think we at the ROM look forward to doing in the coming months and years: it looks at the question of the relationship between art and culture and really expanding the definition of what art is.”
Tattoos: Ritual. Identity. Obsession. Art, will be on display in Toronto until September 5.
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