Another NY Times Article: Tattooing Transition from Cult to Fine Art

[ironchef]

Seems the Times is taking a real shine to tattooing lately:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/10/arts/artsspecial/Tracing-the-transformation-of-tattoos-.html?_r=0&adxnnl=1&pagewanted=all&adxnnlx=1368048760-7VNI97cpfncqKcRQG9UJSQ

[DJDeepFried]

Generally positive but low information article. Only thing I object to is this notion that tattooing is somehow elevated because some fairly well-known artists are also making tattoos. Tattoo is its own medium -- and one that requires a good deal more technique and skill than picking up a paintbrush.

[Graeme]

My short response is that tattooing doesn't need validation from the New York Times or the art world.

My longer response is that is anything interesting at all being said here? It's obvious that the person who wrote the article did essentially no research at all into tattooing or the history of tattooing and how it intersects or not with fine art. I mean, she writes about some jagoff performance artist who made a video of him tattooing prostitutes for heroin money in 2000, but not Ed Hardy's 2000 Dragon Scroll that exhibited in a gallery the same year? Or how about the idea that tattoos are suddenly collectible now that the fine art world has taken a bit of a shine to them? Because there weren't tattoo collectors before? And that tattoo collecting isn't at all the same as fine art collecting for the simple fact that tattoos have no exchange value? That's just a start of what's wrong with the article.

[Mark Bee]

My short response is that tattooing doesn't need validation from the New York Times or the art world.

My longer response is that is anything interesting at all being said here? It's obvious that the person who wrote the article did essentially no research at ahttp://www.lastsparrowtattoo.com/forum/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=65818ll into tattooing or the history of tattooing and how it intersects or not with fine art. I mean, she writes about some jagoff performance artist who made a video of him tattooing prostitutes for heroin money in 2000, but not Ed Hardy's 2000 Dragon Scroll that exhibited in a gallery the same year? Or how about the idea that tattoos are suddenly collectible now that the fine art world has taken a bit of a shine to them? Because there weren't tattoo collectors before? And that tattoo collecting isn't at all the same as fine art collecting for the simple fact that tattoos have no exchange value? That's just a start of what's wrong with the article.

Thank you for reading it so that I didn't have to, Graeme. My suspicions? Confirmed.