Customizing the Body (PDF file) - Print My Tattoo

150 Conclusion
about through the conscious, cooperative, and goal-directed efforts
of social actors who have a vested interest in having their
activities defined as artistic and their product legitimated as art.
To the extent that they are successful, they gain status, their occupational
lives may be more satisfying, their chances of achieving
significant financial reward are enhanced, and the pressures
exerted by agents of social control are reduced or deflected
(DiMaggio, 1987; Wolff, 1983).
The boundaries of the contemporary tattoo production world
rub against those of the larger, conventionally legitimated art
world. Key actors in the former are increasingly engaged in concerted
efforts to broach these boundaries, thereby achieving the
valued redefinition of tattOOing as art and the related advantages,
which will follow. This endeavor is proceeding in spite of internal
resistance from tattooists who are satisfied with the current commercial
status quo and external opposition by agents of the conventional
art world who refuse to acknowledge the legitimacy
claims of tattOOing. Consequently, an examination of the tattoo
world can help to identify those factors that impede the incorporation
of a cultural production activity into the accepted repertoire
of artistry or, on the other hand, increase the likelihood that
the practice and product will be socially sanctioned as "real" art.
This is the issue I will explore in these concluding paragraphs.
FACTORS AFFECTING ARTISTIC DEFINITION
Art exists in much more than "the eye of the beholder." Like deviance
(Becker, 1963; Schur, 1971), objects that are identified as
art and activities that are deemed artistic are labeled as such
through the conflictual, cooperative, and negotiative process of
social interaction. Having one's activities socially certified as "artistic,"
the outcomes of those activities defined as "art," and the
consumption of the products regarded as "art collection," hold significant
advantages for all those involved. Direct participation in
the institutional networks of the art world confers status, affords
significant control over occupational activities, promotes an enhanced
definition of self, and offers the potential of increased economic
gain. Since "anything whatever may become art" (Dickie,
1971: 107; 1974: 49-50), the key question around which an insti-