body piercing goodness

[SSH]

Most tatoos and body piercing are not particualrly attractive to me. However, I think Blackthorne's definition of art is a bit narrow. After all, a room with the lights turning on and off won the Turner prize in 2001...

http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/turnerprize/20years/creed.htm

[Mr Jake]

That was abit Narrow Minded Blackthorn. Art is a form of expresion, as are tatoos and piercings.

[rodekill]

See, I have a few tattoos and my ears pierced, but I don't look at it as a form of expression at all.
Firstly, I totally admit that I got my ears done for the look. Whatever.
The tattoos are a different story. Each one represents something personal to me. An important time in my life, for example. The content isn't important, it's what it reminds me of.
I didn't get them to show them off, and actually, it's a little awkward when people ask about them, just because people don't really get it when I explain it like that.

[DGMacphee]

The tattoos are a different story. Each one represents something personal to me. An important time in my life, for example. The content isn't important, it's what it reminds me of.
I didn't get them to show them off, and actually, it's a little awkward when people ask about them, just because people don't really get it when I explain it like that.

What they remind you of, eh? Hmmm... If that's the case, I wonder what they could look like...

[Shattered Sponge]

I'm sick of hearing "Tattoos are Art"

Whatever.

If you want art, paint a fucking picture.

Otherwise, it's just some picture...

After reading this, I laughed for seventeen years before deciding not to bother trudging through the rest of your post.

Thanks for that.

[rodekill]

What they remind you of, eh? Hmmm... If that's the case, I wonder what they could look like...

In retrospect, not such a hot idea once the authorities track me down. Poobungies.

[xenogia]

Hehe, exactly.  Art is everything from something on a canvas, hey isn't human skin a canvas.  I was involved in a body piercing exhibition a few years ago where the designed interested jewerley for me to where, and it was for a portfolio.  Art is also music that something totally different as well.  I designed what I have for an artistic value, they are not random.

Thanks for the support ppls

[Moox]

Let people do what they want. All im gonna say

[Oliver]

Well...
I like tatoos (if they are not on the face) and I also like pierceing. But I only  like pierceing when there aren't too many rings and thingy's. That just makes people look ugly. That's what I think. Some earing and a tongue ring does't make you ugly...but when you have 20 earings, 2 tongue rings, 10 noserings etc etc. Then you just look...ugly...to me.

But that's just like my opinion.


But also, I agree. People should do what they want. It's their body.

[Blackthorne]

That was abit Narrow Minded Blackthorn. Art is a form of expresion, as are tatoos and piercings.

No, I'm sick of people shitting in a box and calling it art.

Art takes time, practice, reason, perserverance, thought, emotion and many other qualities that people just fucking heap onto useless rambles of a minorly artistic medium.Ã,  It pisses me off.

I don't care if people think that's narrow minded; I think it's an insult to art - the thousands of years of it's development, and movement, and today's world just can't come up with anything better than turning a fucking light switch on?

Let me ask you: three hundred years from now, do you think anybody is gonna give two flying angel fucks about a light switch, or will people still be studying the use of color and technique in "The Mona Lisa"?

After reading this, I laughed for seventeen years before deciding not to bother trudging through the rest of your post.

Thanks for that.

You're welcome.Ã,  I always enjoy making people laugh, but I suppose I feel sorry for you wasting all your teenage years laughing at my silly statements.Ã,  I'm sorry you even had to trudge through the little bit of my post you waded through.Ã,  Really.Ã,  It's such a terrific shame.

Now, yes, my definition of art is narrow, because it needs to be limited.Ã,  I don't want to go to an art-show, see a box of labeled dog-shit, or somebody who has 2,000 tattoos covering their body, or some freak who is pierced in 976 places on his body.Ã,  Sorry.Ã,  Not that interesting, or really creative.Ã,  It's actually rather cliche.Ã,  It's not fucking art.Ã,  It's an insult to the complete history of art, and my trying to mollify yourself into that world, you're just trying to affliate yourself with greatness.Ã,  I've heard all the arguments, that art has no limitations, et cetera.Ã,  That's just some bullshit excuse, made up by people who want to insinuate themselves into some kind of elevated societal level.Ã, 

That said, the most important thing, however, is IF YOU like your tattoos and piercings, that's all that matters.Ã,  Don't try and defend yourself buy making arguments that they're art.Ã,  You like them.Ã,  End of story.

Bt

Bt

[Moox]

In 3 houndred years monalisa will be dust....
Stop being such an ass
Art can be anything
If people want to be stabbed and injected with ink because they think it looks good let them. Its their body, you dont have to look at it.

[Haddas]

I'm sick of people shitting in a box and calling it art.

I just came up with a devilish scheme for making millions...

[Blackthorne]

In 3 houndred years monalisa will be dust....
Stop being such an ass

Yes, it will - but it's legacy will live on.  It has been photographed, written about and studied and it will continue to be.

Art can be anything

Again, I'm sick of hearing this.  It's just an excuse for lazy people to insinuate themselves into some realm of greatness. 

I should note here that I don't think Tattoo artists are lazy folks; most are talented illustrators.  I'm more sick of the crap that DOES pass for art today.

If people want to be stabbed and injected with ink because they think it looks good let them. Its their body, you dont have to look at it.

Very true, it's their body and hence my last statement, saying that if they enjoy it, that perhaps is all that matters.

[DGMacphee]

It's hard to define art, IMO, since all of it is so subjective.

One definition I heard is that "art" is a personal reflection using a creative medium, whereas a "craft" is a creative interpretation for someone else.

For example, most making of furniture is a craft because most of it is designed with a customer in mind (a chair was deisgned for people to sit, a table so they could eat at). Whereas Van Gogh painted pictures mainly as an expression of himself, rather than painting something for a customer. Which is why he only sold two paintings in his life.

Tattooists, IMO, are doing a craft, because they're creating something to a customer's specifications. Sure, there are tattooists who do "body art" for exhibitions, but these are few.

Even if tattooing is a craft, this doesn't reduce the substance of the work. A craft still has a lot of creative expression -- in some cases more so that art does. But people have got to eat, so they've got to sell something.

After her divorce, my mother used to date an artist. He did both artwork and craftwork. His craftwork included doing sculptures of Warner Brothers cartoon characters (Tweety, Duffy Duck) for Movie World on the Gold Coast here in Queensland. His artwork included these amazing Venus De Milo-like sculptures that were naked bodies with different sexual conitations. One statue had a phallic-looking tap instead of genitals. Another had female genitals all over her body (arms, chest, face). It's was pretty confronting stuff, but very cool stuff. But they didn't sell very well. I mean, the type of people with the money to buy those statues were fairly reluctant to have vagina-statues in their homes. So, the money he made to survive came from stuff like the Warner Brothers stuff. Whereas, the genitals statues were something he did for himself.

[Ozwalled]

Keep in mind that I'm no expert.........

I guess one of the things that always strikes a lot of people about art is that they'll look at a piece and say either "What?! *I* could do that!" or "A two year old kid could do that". Often these people don't realize what goes into the composition of the piece, including the presentation and composition of it all.

Many of the so-called great artist have been criticized at various points. People looked down on a lot of what Picasso did, saying that the guy couldn't draw. They could look at a big blue blob and criticize Matisse. They could look at a canvas dominated by two big rectangles; one orange the other blue, and totally poo-poo it... I'd go on, but I don't think I want to right now.

I think that a part of what makes something "art" is somehow convincing people that it is just that, and being the first one to do it. It's one thing to take a crap in a box and put it on display, but it's a whole world away from convincing people that it's artistic.

As far as tattoage and piercings go... I suppose one might be able to consider it art, in some form. It is a means of expression (and though it may be ambigous, a lot of art shares that trait), but so is the clothing we wear... and that's not referred to as art nearly as often, if you ask me (personally, I think that creative use of clothing to be a lot more artistic in a lot of cases than are body piercings or tattoos). I may be blasted for saying this (even though I don't mean to be too critical about it), but I think that an AWFUL lot of the people who get tattoos and piercigs these days are doing it as an "in" thing to do. This would explain the ridiculous ammout of Chinese, Japanese and Celtic symbols that are going around in modern tattoos, wouldn't it? Not to MENTION all of the butterfly, dragonfly, dolphin, dragon, eagle, skull and cartoon/ comic book character tatts that are out there. I think that the lack of originality in too many tattoos (not all, of course) is a sign that indeed, a lot of what we're seeing isn't very much of a fine art.

On to piercing, it's getting harder and harding to do something even remotely original anymore. (Not that I'm big on the piercing scene, but a temple piercing was one that I'd never heard of before... congrats on that much, I guess.) It's like it's all been done to death. I'm living in a small town and I've seen more than my share of piercings in all of the typical places (ears, nostril, middle of the nose, brow, tongue, that part of skin under the tongue, nipples, lip, under the lip area, and some others) at some time or another. The very fact that so many of these are a typical loop, basic stud or barbell (save for ear piercings, that is) I think, further demonstrates that piercings (along with tattooing), in the way they're largely done at the moment, are more of a zeitgeist and a fad than they are legitimate artistic expression.

In a lot of ways, they're not unlike the bellbottoms fad decades back. I remember talking to someone who'd lived though that time and asked if they wore them. "Yeah", they said "but it was only because that's practically all you could buy at the time". Young people getting tattoos and piercings are looking for some form of self expression these days and/ or want to fit in. Tattoos and piercings are two of the things they feel will fill that role for them right now, so it's an easy, semi-socially acceptable grab.

At very best, I think that tattooing and piercing as they're popularly done today could be an infancy of the evolution of the artform, but that it would have a long way to go and develop.

Conversely, you could argue that fine art goes through fashionable trends, too, and you wouldn't be wrong.

So what is art and what isn't? It's largely a matter of perception, I guess. No matter what anyone says, there will always be those observing whatever and saying that it is or isn't art. Some will talk of the juxtoposition of brushstrokes and colour, others will discuss the perfect placement of bits of metal. Others still will be of the opinion that the emperor isn't wearing any clothes (new or otherwise).

(Finally, for those who do get tattoos and piercings, PLEASE, do it for yourself.)

[xenogia]

nice comment, i like that view very much. cause it is exactly i how feel about it all

[SSH]

My favourite piece of modern "taking-the-piss" art was at the Edinburgh Art College graduation show a couple of years ago.

A 1m square canvas was painted white. In the middle, stuck there with glue was a single key from a computer keyboard. The piece was titled "Escape". Guess which key it was.

Next to it were two other of the same artists' "work": titled "Pause" and "Control"

They were selling for £150 each.

* SSH  recycles his keyboard and makes £15300...

[Mr Jake]

if that was CGA, like, just a picture someone made to express something, that would be a decent-ish piece of Computer art, £150 however, I think not.

[Alexis Vale]

That's a cool temple ring. I had my ears pierced in second grade, but I haven't worn earrings for many years now (about seven). Still, my ears will not close up. I don't have many piercings or tattoos. I wouldn't open myself to the danger of dirty needles. I see more and more people with piercings and tattoos. It amazes me. It somewhat attracts, but almost repulses, me. Haha.

I went to volunteer at a health fair at the mall this past weekend. I got to walking around the other booths and learned quite a bit. I picked up an interesting article about mouth piercing and all these young idiots teenagers who got it done wrong and have problems now, which rack up their bills/having to pay back their mommy and daddy..

Does anyone know why tattoos might make it so an athlete is disqualified at a track competition, such as pole vaulting? It makes no sense, especially if it's just a celtic design on the neck.


dictionary.com

artÃ,  (ärt) n.
1. Human effort to imitate, supplement, alter, or counteract the work of nature.

2.
a. The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium.
b. The study of these activities.
c. The product of these activities; human works of beauty considered as a group.

3. High quality of conception or execution, as found in works of beauty; aesthetic value.
4. A field or category of art, such as music, ballet, or literature.
5. A nonscientific branch of learning; one of the liberal arts.

6.
a. A system of principles and methods employed in the performance of a set of activities: the art of building.
b. A trade or craft that applies such a system of principles and methods: the art of the lexicographer.

7.
a. Skill that is attained by study, practice, or observation: the art of the baker; the blacksmith's art.
b. Skill arising from the exercise of intuitive faculties: “Self-criticism is an art not many are qualified to practice” (Joyce Carol Oates).

8.
a. arts Artful devices, stratagems, and tricks.
b. Artful contrivance; cunning.

9. Printing. Illustrative material.

[Blackthorne]

We can define "words" all we like with more words; but something is defined through actions, not words.