Art in the discourse of tattooists

Abstract

Tattoo is a human practice that can be traced from ancient times in remote cultures, but in recent decades it has become a mainstream experience in urban western societies. This development goes hand in hand with changes in its status and characteristics that must be considered. Among them, the professionalisation of the practice and the arrival of people from various fields of the arts as well as the extension of tattoo to the midd classes. To make a reference to the relationship between art and tattoo we must consider the theoretical difficulty to agree and circumscribe an accepted definition of art today but also must consider the relevance of the body in the visual arts over centuries. This is an argument of interest because tattoo is an iconic or linguistic inscription in the body. The purpose of this paper is not, therefore, to conclude whether tattoo can be defined as an artistic activity or not but to investigate the way how art and body issues show up in the discourse of tattoo artists. To achieve this goal, in depth interviews were carried on in the United States and in Spain.