As Deutsche Welle reports, several photos and interviews have become part of an exhibition called 'Tattoo', whose exhibits can be viewed until September 6, 2015, at the Museum of Applied Arts in Hamburg (Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg).
Tattooing is prohibited in Austrian prisons, but inmates take any risk, using brick dust, cigarette ash, ordinary paper clips, and other makeshift means to scratch tattoos onto their skin—just to get that coveted design on their body. Why such sacrifices? According to one of Pichler's book subjects, pain brings a person back to life, tearing them away from the monotonous flow, if only temporarily, allowing them to intensely feel strong and free to make decisions.
Isn't it for the same reasons that ordinary citizens get tattoos? After all, each of us is to some extent locked in our own body, this individual 'prison' of skin, flesh, and bones. So wouldn't it be better to decorate the place of our confinement to the fullest, making our own choice rather than submitting to the will of genetics or, for example, the sun, which gives us freckles in the most unexpected places?
A tattoo, whether a miniature mark on the ankle or a colorful picture covering half the back, says about its bearer that they are capable of making a decision, can endure pain, and are ready to test themselves in order to break free from the confines of their natural limits. A tattoo is a scar of consciousness that has resolutely desired an action. It may not be a wound earned in battle, but it becomes, albeit illusory, proof of a full life. A tattoo involuntarily speaks of pain consciously experienced by a person and of some experience acquired either in an emotional outburst or out of a need to feel oneself.
According to Dennis Conrad, head of projects at the Hamburg Museum of Applied Arts and curator of the exhibition, tattooing has become a mass phenomenon, something widely accepted and completely normal. 'Today, the question is not whether it is allowed or not. Today, the main factor is personal motivation,' Conrad notes. 'Some simply want to stand out, to embellish themselves with a design on the skin. Others want to emphasize their belonging to a particular social group. For many, a tattoo is a notch on their own body, an eternal and reliable reminder of an important event that may have changed their life.'
The Hamburg exhibition thoroughly acquaints visitors with ritual tattoos of New Zealand Maori, with magical designs that in Thailand are attributed a special power to influence a person's fate, as well as with the tools used to apply tattoos in the past and today.
A separate section of the exhibition features photographs by Arkady Bronnikov, who studied the characteristics of Soviet prison tattooing in the second half of the last century. These designs are multilayered; each element has a specific symbolic meaning.
The double-headed eagle, the antipode of the Soviet state symbols – the hammer and sickle, indicates an open dislike of the USSR. The Statue of Liberty on the left tells of the intention to leave the place of confinement sooner or later. The dark figure pointing a weapon at the viewer indicates readiness for any form of violence, including murder. The cross and the church do not testify to the prisoner's deep religious feelings, but to the fact that he is a 'thief in law' and does not intend to obey secular authorities, Bronnikov's research states.
A stuffed tattooed pig named Donata catches the attention of every visitor to the exhibition in Hamburg. It is part of the project that made the Belgian neo-conceptual artist Wim Delvoye famous, who created 'masterpieces' on the bodies of pigs, previously anesthetized. He first exhibited his 'heroines' in 1997 in a park in Antwerp, which caused discontent among animal rights activists.
Subsequently, Delvoye opened an art farm for raising and tattooing pigs near Beijing. He consciously chose this animal for his provocative project: the pig is physiologically very close to humans. According to the artist, he was sure the provocation would work, and to criticisms about 'animal torture' he responds roughly like this: sending them to the slaughterhouse is considered normal, but tattooing is immoral?!
Apparently, in response to criticism from animal rights activists, in 2006 an even more provocative art project by Wim Delvoye appeared, titled 'Tim'. Swiss Tim Steiner allowed the Belgian artist to tattoo his back. In 2008, this work of art was purchased by a Hamburg collector, who now has the right, for example, to sell it, inherit it, and also preserve it after Steiner's death.
The tattooed Tim occasionally appears in public, displaying his 'artistic' back. Thus, in April and June, he will come to Hamburg for a few days, where he will become a living exhibit of the exhibition. Naturally, the appearance of 'Tim' has provoked a broad public discussion about the value of human freedom, the impossibility of buying and selling human organs, and other ethical aspects of contemporary art.