Customizing the Body (PDF file) - Print My Tattoo

217 Notes to Chapter 5
Painless Tattoos are so realistic, they’ll even fool mom. Use to shock
friends and co-workers; to scare away muscle-bound beasts. Waterapplied
tattoo lasts several days, but can be instantly removed with
rubbing alcohol (emphasis added).
6. A few heavily tattooed collectors, such as “Krystyne the Kolorful”
(Krystyne Chipchar) and Neil Grant, who are well known in the tattooing
subculture, do make a limited amount of money from their extensive collections
by marketing photographs of themselves. A significantly more
macabre approach is seen at the Medical Pathology Museum of Tokyo
University which houses a collection of over 105 preserved tattooed skins.
The collection was originally begun in the mid-1920s by Dr. Masaichi
Fukushi. Athough the collection is largely a medical curiosity, this is one
of only a few situations in which extensive, fine art tattooing has been separated
from its original owner and maintained as a cultural artifact
(Hardy, 1987b; see also Richie and Buruma, 1980: 69).
7. For example, Jeff Crisman, a photography professor at the University
of Illinois Chicago campus exhibited his photos of tattooing and tattooists
at the Chicago Public Library Cultural Center in 1983 (Fondiller, 1984) and
at the Arc Gallery in 1986 (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 12, 1986, p. 21).
Sandi Fellman, a photography professor at Rutgers University, exhibited
her photos of full-body Japanese tattooing at the Clarence Kennedy Gallery
in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1987 and Masato Sudo’s exhibition of
Japanese work was on display in San Diego’s Museum of Photographic Art
(Jamiol, 1987: 37). Sudo and Fellman also had photographs in a major
exhibit entitled “The Art of the Japanese Tattoo” presented by the respected
Peabody Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. This show was a particularly
significant event in the course of tattooing’s legitimation as an art
form. The Peabody exhibit included a large collection of ukiyo-e prints by
Utagawa Kuniyoshi representing tattooed heros from the Suikoden.
Japanese tattoo master Aki Ohwada—the owner of the Kuniyoshi prints—
and his wife attended the show and proudly displayed their own extensive
tattoos. Most importantly, the Peabody exhibit was significant because it
was supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and,
as DiMaggio (1987: 452) emphasizes, grants from public agencies “set out
explicit classifications of artistic work” (see The Hartford Courant, November
9, 1986, p. H25; Jamiol, 1987). Other exhibitions of tattoo art have been
presented at the Oakland Art Museum (1978), Mercati Traianei in Rome
(1985), the Paradiso in Amsterdam (1986), and the Sixth Sense Gallery in
New York (1987). Museums specifically devoted to displaying historical
memorabilia and examples of a wide range of classic and contemporary tattooing
have been established by Lyle Tuttle in San Francisco (the Tattoo
Art Museum) and “Philadelphia Eddie” Funk in Philadelphia (the National
Tattoo Museum).
8. For example, in December of 1972 the UGA had an exhibition of work
in City College’s Eisner Hall which was reviewed by the New York Times