Results tagged “Matt Lodder”
08:44 AM
 Image above (cropped) from Tattoo History Daily. See full image and caption here.This Thursday, forgo the flowers, candy hearts, and love poems, and spend your Valentine's Day with stories of "disfigurement, murder, and flayed skin (with a bit of cannibalism and sadism thrown in for good measure)" -- with red wine of course -- at Morbid Anatomy (8pm) in Brooklyn, NY for the Tragic Tattoo Tales: A Valentine's Day Lecture and Reading. The illustrated lecture and reading is given by our favorite tattoo scholars Anna Felicity Friedman and Matt Lodder, who will offer up tattoo history tied to romance and the macabre. Here's more on the talk from Morbid Anatomy: Through illustrated slide lectures, Drs. Friedman and Lodder will present comparative historical material to provide context and deeper understanding and to separate fact from fiction. Learn about wide ranging tattoo topics in both Western and non-Western cultures and have questions answered that the stories raise. Did people really preserve tattooed skin? What were people reading about tattoos in the early twentieth century? Were Maori really tattooed head to foot? What were the connections between Ukiyo-e and Japanese tattooing in the Edo period?Anna also told the Brooklyn Daily: "There's some short stories about tattooing and romance, which are kind of creepy and weird. They always end with death, or some macabre consequence like being splashed with acid, or having the tattoo flayed off the skin." Sounds like an average Thursday night for Brian & I, so we'll be there. I hope to see y'all as well. It's only $5 for admission, so you can bring a few dates to Tragic Tattoo Tales. Also, check out Anna's irreverent Valentine's Day mini-series on Tattoo History Daily (which includes the images in this post). It's not related to the lecture content, necessarily, but similarly cynical and awesome.  A pair of lovers, part of a trio posted on Tattoo History Daily. From Riecke, 1925.
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09:59 AM
 Tomorrow, September 25th, is the US release of "Forever: The New Tattoo" published by Gestalten. The 240-page hardcover distinguishes itself from the many tattoo titles on shelves today with an finely curated group of international artists who are creating innovative works and pushing boundaries with new patterns, approaches and even new ways of thinking about what makes a strong, timeless tattoo.
Insightful profiles on these tattooists are written by Nick Schonberger, one of the writers behind the excellent "Homeward Bound: The Life and Times of Hori Smoku Sailor Jerry." In an interview with Cool Hunting, Nick talks about some of the artists he interviewed for the new book and their stories: [...] Curly from Oxford, he tattooed with Alex Binnie--a lot of the people have connections to Into You in London: Alex, Curly, Duncan X and Thomas Hooper. Curly talks about hating tattoos, hating mainstream tattoos, having hated tattoos before he met Alex Binnie and realized there could be something "art directed." Curly started moving into tribal tattoos and became one of the pioneers of what you could call "neo-tribal"--although his style is a little different than that. On a mainstream level, that's the easiest analogy. Amanda Wachob is a tattooer who approached tattooing as a way to begin to think about painting and how to combined those two things together. She paints after her consultations with clients and those consultations form the basis of the tattoos that she ends up doing. Robert Ryan is a musician and his music is all about pattern and his tattoos are all about pattern.  Another highlight of the book is the foreword by art historian Dr. Matt Lodder, who always offers an interesting perspective on tattoo culture, from ancient tribal rites to contemporary trends. This past weekend, Matt moderated a discussion on tattooing during the book release event in Berlin. There, Alex Binnie and Duncan X discussed their tattoo experiences and ideology. For a glimpse into that discussion, check this video (below) in which Alex & Duncan "talk about the current mass appeal of tattoos, its uniqueness as an art form and the "holy trinity" of tattooing styles." You can pre-order "Forever: The New Tattoo" on Amazon. |
Tattoo TAGS: Alex Binnie Duncan X Forever New Tattoo Matt Lodder Nick Schonberger |
11:40 AM
 Kat Von D portrait tattoo by Erin Chance
With filming beginning for yet another tattoo TV show, NY Ink, it seems the timing is right for Dr. Matt Lodder's look at the formulas behind "reality TV" (and their relation to the true reality of tattooing) in his article entitled, "Televising the Tattoo" for Paperweight: A Newspaper of Visual & Material Culture. The article articulates the hot button issue surrounding these shows: not every tattoo needs to have a story but a television show does. Here's just a bit of what Matt says: It is true that subsections of the tattooed population--gangs, sailors, prisoners--have certainly long made use of tattoos to express specific concepts or to signify group membership, but this has never been true of tattoos in general. Tattooing has forever been decorative as much as it has been simply narrative, with many tattoos lacking a specifically expressive story-telling component to the design. Nevertheless, tattoo TV both depends on and reinforces the preconception that the skin is a screen for its generic formula. For so ingrained is the connection between tattoos and stories that without the traumatic sob-stories of death and loss attached to almost every tattoo, the shows would feature little more than shots of the tattooers high-fiving one another. For more of this excellent read, you can order Paperweight, print & digital, here. [For more on NY Ink, see the blogs of Ami James and Tim Hendricks.] |
Tattoo TAGS: academia Ami James Kat Von D Matt Lodder NY Ink reality tv tattoo tv Tim Hendricks |
01:07 PM
 A new tattoo magazine has dropped in the UK, founded by two experienced and respected journalists, Neil Dalleywater and Alex Guest, former editors of Skin Deep & Tattoo Master magazines.
Check out Tattoo Revolution Magazine. In response to the "greedy corporate shadow [that] has steadily engulfed the tattoo world in recent times," Neil and Alex have set out to create an ethical publication "that answers to the tattoo community and no one else." This first issue delivers in its rich content with thoughtful profiles of artists including Marcus Maguire, Russ Abbott, David Corden and Nick Chaboya as well as convention coverage, event listings, product reviews and even a practical tutorial on drawing by Tony Ciavarro. And of course we're a bit biased in loving the interview with Dr. Matt Lodder, our favorite heavily tattooed academic art historian (and Dandy) shown below.  You know what Tattoo Revolution does not have a lot of? Gratuitous booby shots (unless you count Matt's tattooed pectorals). Now, we love boobs. But if you read us regularly, you know we're getting tired of the ubiquitous spreads of the "hot inked chick" who has the one ankle tattoo blurred in the background of her arched back, pouty-pouty pin-up shot. There are sexy women and men photographed in the magazine but they are beautifully tattooed and not, well, silly. Please, Neil and Alex, keep going along this path to respect over 50% of the tattooed population.All this amounts to one well curated tattoo publication. The artists are vetted for stellar portfolios, the layout is clean, the photos tight and the writing smart. Unlike many other mags, I wouldn't be embarrassed to open it up on the subway and read it in public. I downloaded the digital edition for 2.49 BP. Keep in mind that it doesn't read on the iPhone or iPad -- which I'd love to see in the future. You can purchase it online here. |
Tattoo TAGS: Alex Guest Matt Lodder Neil Dalleywater tattoo magazine Tattoo Revolution Magazine |
11:41 AM
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Guest Blog by Dr. Matt Lodder *
 As an opening line for an article in a popular newspaper about tattoos, the suggestion that "tattoos are not just for sailors anymore" is a familiar one. We saw it last month in an article in The Guardian called "The Rise and Rise of the Tattoo", whose subheading read "Just why has the art form of sailors, bikers and assorted deviants become mainstream?". And just last week, an article in the Astbury Park Press declared that although "Traditionally viewed by Americans as the crude art of roughnecks or drunken sailors, tattooing has turned a corner, moving toward acceptance as legitimate art". Indeed, it often feels as if the same sentiment graces every article about tattooing in the mainstream press: Tattooing, we've been told again and again recently, is coming of age - finally coming out of the murky shadows of the deviant underworld to leave its mark on the most well-heeled. Tattoos are now to be seen on catwalks, on trading floors and around the chicest tables. The hacks who churn out these stories might be surprised to learn, then, that the popular media has been reporting the arrival of tattooing in high society for nearly one hundred years. In his 1933 book, "Tattoo: Secrets of a Strange Art", Albert Parry reports that the onset of the Great Depression hit tattooists hard, as their usual clients - lawyers and bankers - were hard-up, unable to afford the highest rates for large tattoos. An even earlier article, from Tatler Magazine (the periodical of the British upper classes) in 1905, reports: "The tattoing [sic] craze which first broke out in America has now come to this country, where its chief exponent is Mr. Alfred South of Cockspur Street. During his career Mr. South has operated on upwards of 15,000 persons, including about 900 English women, the designs in a great number of cases being of a most peculiar description. There are some instances where ladies have had the inscriptions on their wedding rings tattooed on their fingers beneath the ring. Ladies who like to keep pace with the times may be adorned with the illustrations of motor cars." (26th November 1905, p. 311) There's simply no truth to the common tale that tattooing has always and forever been the domain of the seedy, the deviant and the marginalised in the West, though the tale is a persistent one. It pervades even the few serious academic histories of tattooing in the West, all of whom who almost universally agree that prior to about 1965, tattooing was less of an art form than some kind of ritual practiced by easily-identifiable groups of the underclass. The 1970s onwards are referred to in these texts as "The Tattoo Renaissance", as if the period before had been a dark age. Recently, a colleague of mine passed me a fantastic article she stumbled across in the course of some archival research. Titled "Modern Fashions in Tattooing", it's from Vanity Fair, dated January 1926 (pp 43, 110). In its opening paragraph, the author confidently exclaims the; very same sentiment we saw only last month in The Guardian: "Tattooing has passed from the savage to the sailor, from the sailor to the landsman. It has since percolated through the entire social stratum; tattooing has received its credentials, and may now be found beneath many a tailored shirt." Even by 1926, magazines were announcing to their readers that tattoos were now popular amongst people like them. And these were not small flash designs either - the article reports large chest pieces, backpieces and designs artistically rendered to the desires of each individual client. It talks about re-works and cover-ups, and tattooing kings and queens. The article even mentions an old-salt tattoo artist called Professor Sharkey, bemoaning the good old days when tattooing was "art for art's sake" and not some modern fad. "It's too bad to have to tattoo diving-girls and Venus rising from the sea when you have it in you to do things like these," he says, gesturing at his collection of rare prints. Tattooists, it seems, like tabloid journalists, have always stuck to the script. -- * Dr Matt Lodder recently completed his PhD thesis in art history at the University of Reading. His research applies art-historical and art-theoretical methodologies to tattooing and other forms of body art. For more about his research, click here. Matt is on Twitter and can be contacted directly via mattlodder at hotmail dotcom. |
Tattoo TAGS: editorial guest blog Matt Lodder tattoo cliches tattoo history |
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