Tattoo is a traditional art form spread over many cultures and societies. There is evidence of tattoo 12,000 years before Christ. This art form has spanned across different cultures, and carried with it different meanings. Associated with elitist, and even sometimes eroticism, the meaning of this art form continues to transform. Tattoo traveled to American society and became a popular art of the elite. Soon electric tattooing made the art affordable and the elite's saw little reward in wearing something that was affordable to the average person. Tattoo changed from elegant to deviant almost over night. The art began to define different social classifications and values in American society. The fascinating factor is that today it has become very popular art form among the radical elite's, and is returning to a mainstream socially accepted art form; but why? Has the art world changed its values or redefined art?
To define the art and understand
the cultural and social meaning of aesthetic value, we must first define
what an art world is. Greetz writes, "All artistic work, like all
human activity, involves the joint activity of a number, often a large
number, of people.... The work always shows signs of that cooperation.
The forms of cooperation may be ephemeral, but often become more or less
routine, producing patterns of collective activity we can call an art world.
The existence of art worlds, as well as the way their existence
affects both the production and consumption of the art, suggesting a sociological
approach to the arts. It is not an approach that produces aesthetic judgments,
although that is a task many sociologist of art have set for themselves.
It produces, instead, an understanding of the complexity of the cooperative
networks through which art happens" (Becker: 1982). This demonstrates that
the art world surrounding "tattoo" is all of those who take part
in the art, from those who make the needles, ink, chairs, web pages, and
even the advertisements displaying tattoo. This demonstrates that
art forms are placed in a larger socially active realm. The cooperation
of many individuals to support the art gives the art its significance,
and value. These social activities are incorporated into a larger
context of social patterned behavior and cultural cleavages that define
social construction. For example, those who admire paintings often
give donations to the museum who displays this art form. This art world
also collects the art and supports the artist of his or her choice, thus
supporting the continuance of the art. The direct social interaction
of defining what social order they are apart of, is defined in their actions
of who and what they support. "The definition of art in any society is
never wholly intra-aesthetic, and indeed but rarely more than marginally
so. The chief problem presented by the sheer phenomenon of aesthetic
force, in whatever form and in result of whatever skill it may come, is
how to place it within the other modes of social activity, how to incorporate
it into the texture of a particular pattern of life. And such placing,
the giving to art objects a cultural significance, this is always a local
matter..."(Geertz: 1983).
By defining what they feel
is "high" art and those who deliver it, they are defining their place within
that particular social structure, thus loosing the credibility to
define the art.
"One important faucet of a
sociological analysis of any social world is to see when, where, and how
participants draw the lines that distinguish what they want to be taken
as characteristic from what is not to be so taken. Art worlds typically
devote considerable attention to trying to decide what is and isn't an
artist; by observing how an art world makes those distinctions rather
than trying to make them ourselves we can understand much of what goes
on in that world..."(Becker: 1982) " In sense, art worlds and worlds
of commercial, craft, and folk art are parts of a larger social organization"
(Becker: 1982). They define and support the art and are therefore the art
world, culture and qualifiers of their world. Without acceptance, we as
"outsiders," can not justify nor are qualified to judge the art of their
culture. Thus, true definition of art can only take place within certain
faucets of that particular culture, "what art is in classical China or
classical Islam, what it is in the Pueblo southwest or highland New Guineas,
is just not the same thing, no matter how universal the intrinsic qualities
that actualize its emotional power.."(Greetz: 1983). To define the art
of tattoo then, one would have to be part of that particular world, that
particular place, and in that particular time.
Today there are over 650
tattoo studios in the world, each with its own supporting art world. The
number continues to grow and the art worlds continue to grow along with
them. There are a variety of connecting factors that incorporate
the worlds by connecting them to mainstream ideas within their particular
world, these include magazines, conventions, tattoo supply houses,
books, video, newsletters, clothing, and other supporting information.
Dana's tattoo studio which I frequent over the last sixteen weeks
had its own cultural dynamics. I found that the artist traveled to many
cities and countries to learn more about the art forms of other cultures
practicing tattoo.
To join this culture as an artist is no easy task. Often one would have to be accepted into the social group, and then go through a long and rigorous process of apprenticeship. Learning the history and traditions of tattoo is important to most, and is almost a requisite for those artist wanting to have recognition. The culture is inside, circular, and surrounding, and to become part of it you must learn about the art. For example, you can not simply walk into a gallery and give your interpretation of what you think of a Picasso if you have no knowledge of who he was, or about the time frame in which he was working, nor could you place yourself in the particular art world without knowledge, thus you have no right to define it.
To understand this we must
understand social control and cleavages that define who we are, what symbols
we use to define ourselves and how. We need to identify ourselves
within society and the world, giving ourselves definitions of the
self, the us and the "other." Who are they and why?
"Man is a creator and user
of symbols (Babcock: 1978). These symbols define not just our art but our
social values. These symbols are often defined by inverting who we know
we are not as explained by Barbara Babcock as symbolic inversion.
"Symbolic inversion" may be broadly defined as any act of expressive behavior
which inverts, contradicts, abrogates, or in some fashion presents an alternative
to commonly held cultural codes, values, and norms be they linguistic,
literary or artistic, religious, or social and political" (Babcock: 1978).
Measuring against things that we are not defines who we are and what is
important and acceptable within our culture group. "Desire that inversion
be regarded as a dimension of deliberate, self-conscious, patterned
behavior" (Babcock: 1978). This patterned behavior is part of a larger
social context of defining what art is, and to define this you must be
part of the group, not the one standing outside inverting what you
are not. The social characteristics of inversion follow social class and
acceptance.
"Specifically symbol-using
animal will necessarily introduce a symbol ingredient into every experience.
Hence, every experience will be imbued with negativity" (Babcock: 1978).
Thus, the factors that give you the right to define what is or is
not art, can only be defined by those who are part of the art world surrounding
and supporting it, and if you are on the outside looking in you simply
can not judge, qualify, interpret, or even classify the art. We invert
everything within our society to better understand who we are, and
where are particular identity exist. By defining yourself outside
of the art world of tattoo you have systematically unfairly judged it,
thus negation leads to misinterpretation. This can be seen in the
larger social context by how people gain power through inverting what they
are not. The elite's often point to the lower classes and define
themselves by saying we are not them, as well as the lower classes defining
themselves by the same token. This fits the larger social patterned interaction
that takes place throughout the art world by defining first who the "others"
are. Self empowerment is seen through the ranking of self and the
"other." Stallybrass and White give the example of literary ranking
to define how this works in a cultural system. "The ranking of literary
genres or authors in a hierarchy analogous to social classes is a particularly
clear example of a much broader and more complex cultural process whereby
the human body, psychic forms, geographical space and the social formation
are all constructed within interrelating and dependent hierarchies of high
and low" (Stallybrass and White: 1986). Making the high depend on the low
is the symbolism that has been a large part of our understanding of who
we are. The interrelation comes from the inversion of the other to define
ones self. What is acceptable to one group is not by the other, however
there is the needfor the low to define the difference of high. "More particularly
it attends both to the formation of these hierarchies and to the
process through which the low troubles the high. The high/low opposition
in each of our four symbolic domains -psychic forms, the human body,
geographical space, and the social order- is a fundamental basis to mechanisms
of ordering and sense-making in European culture's. Divisions and discriminations
in one domain are continually structured, legitimated and dissolved
by reference to the vertical symbolic hierarchy which operates in the other
three domains. Culture's 'think themselves' in the most immediate and affective
ways through the combined symbolism's of these four hierarchies"
(Stallybrass and White: 1986).The Enlightenment period and Western imperialism
are clear
examples of how this works.
The thought that those who were uneducated and primitive need to be enlightened
to the standards of those who were. This led to the destruction of cultures
and societies by those who knew little about them.
In Plato's The Republic,
he gives the example of those lesser people in caves who should be led
by those enlightened leaders trained in the understandings of the
world. This type of thinking has been in our society for years and yet
goes unquestioned. How can one group place themselves within a social structure
that they have no experience with. By defining them as substandard,
needing leadership, they are destroying part of the world and culture without
understanding it. By defining art as one particular form we can not, nor
do we, give the recognition to those art forms, or societies, that we do
not understand. Instead we often fix those that are not like us, the enlighten
ones of the earth, the leaders. "A recurrent pattern emerges: the 'top'
attempts to reject and eliminate the bottom' for reasons of prestige and
status, only to discover, not only that it is in some way frequently dependent
upon that low "other"(Stallybrass and White: 1986).
"The result is a mobile,
conflictual fusion of power, fear and desire in the construction of subjectivity:
a psychological dependence upon precisely those others which are
being rigorously opposed and excluded at the social level. It is for this
reason that what is socially peripheral is so frequently symbolically central"
(Stallbrass and White: 1986). With this centrality comes the attraction
to the other. This attraction usually based on the fact that one world
is needed to define the opposite, and where need is placed, attract is
instilled. The attraction to this other gives the elite's a space in which
they can take part, but stay far enough away, that their group or social
order is not threatened.
Therefore we see many people
taking part in the art form of tattoo, but at the same time hiding it form
their peers. This
leads us back to the question
of how tattoo has become so popularized today.
The growth in popularity can be
explained by the notion of tourism. Tourism developed during the Enlightenmentperiod,
and helped define ones social order, by visiting what it is not. By doing
so we are often attracted to who the "others" are and what happens within
their social order empowering ourselves through defining the "other."
"Relationship of the "other" to its stigmatized role and the "double inversion"
of assuming a deviant role, and regarding it as acceptable or successful"
(Babcock: 1978). MacCannell gives his interpretation of tourism and social
order by the tourist trying to define self while visiting the "other."
" The modern critique of tourist is not an analytical reflection on the
problem of tourism-it is a part of the problem... They are reproached for
being satisfied with superficial experiences of other peoples and other
places." Therefore we often visit or take part in different cultures to
experience a sense of vacation from our everyday lives. However, by a visit
we can stay far enough away from the culture that we are visitingand not
fall into their particular social cleavage. By touring an inversion of
our culture we are in a sense traveling to an exotic place, and this can
be just as exciting as an African safari. "All tourist desire this deeper
involvement with society and culture to some degree; it is a basic component
of their motivation to travel" (MacCannell: 1976). This interpretation
of tourism can be explained by Babcock as "in its obvious and overt forms
such as "rituals of rebellion," role reversal and institutionalized clowning...
The world upside down , a more or less familiar environment arranged to
contrast with the way the world is commonly experienced then that what
is "not...the concept of 'inversion' represents the pre-social period...before
there was an ordered society, when there was, instead, a world of social
disorder or chaos (Babcock: 1978) a vacation from the norm of what
we define as ordered and self identity. By visiting different social groups
we can feel like we are bad, cool, or even part of a group. By simply going
and getting a tattoo one can feel like they are part of the social order,
but only visiting it when feeling the need to vacation from their social
realm. This is often seen in new art or unusual art.
New and unusual art forms
as Constance Perin has defined, by quoting at length, Arnold Hauser, "High,
serious, uncompromising art has a disturbing effect, often distressing
and torturing; popular art, on the other hand, wants to soothe, distract
us from the painful problems of existence, and instead of inspiring us
to activity and exertion, criticism and self-examination, moves us on the
contrary to passivity and self-satisfaction...The chances of success of
important works are lessened by the fact that the new, the unusual,
and the difficult have of themselves a disturbing effect upon an
uneducated and not especially artistically experienced audience and move
them to take up a negative position (Hauser: 1983; Perlin: 1994). Although
this can be explained through symbolic inversion as attraction to the negative,
what we are not. However, she goes further; "Barque and other painters
first reacted little differently to Picasso's work. "the traditional
stylistic fractures of painting were so thoroughly violated that their
orientation toward painting was no longer applicable. Rather than permit
themselves to be disoriented, they denied Picasso's work admission into
their category of painting and consequently in to their category of art"(Peckham:
1965; Perlin: 1994) However at the same time we are repulsed by the new
art form or that which is out of our social norm, we are attracted to it.
People distance them selves from areas that they do not understand.
When they visit or take part in the "unusual" their not really sure why.
Often the elitist take part within a culture transforming it into fad.
Usually those who begin fads are not empowered (i.e. black youths who have
changed they way white youths dress). People take part to invert them selves
and become or visit something that they are not. Max Gluckmas maintains
that while such "rites of reversal obviously include a protest against
the established order,....they are intended to preserve and strengthen
the established order. People support it even if they hate it because it
lets them define who they are. "An especially important form of symbolic
inversion is "that used to mark a boundary, between peoples, between categories
of persons, between life and death." Hostile or suspect neighbors
of the Lugbara are inverted; witches among the Kaguru dance upside down;
in Toraja land of the dead everything is the reverse of what it is in this
world, to the extent that words even mean the opposite of their everyday
connotations or are pronounced backwards" this means that group membership
is determined not only by what members share, but by what the members
recognize that "significant others" do not share. Thus they develop the
notions of stereotyping and deviance: the definition of those outsiders
on the periphery" in terms of how they depart from insiders in the
direction of nature or chaos." (Babcock: 1978)
"I believe that the serious
wrongness lies exactly in the ancient effort to find order in a situation
which offers us the opportunity to experience disorder......I think it
is time to praise disorder a little... Social cultural uses and consequences
of this manipulation, with understanding how inversions may operate as
a means of social control, of social protest, of social change, and of
social deviance" (Babcock: 1978). We have to ask questions about time,
place and social meanings before placing our social values upon art and
culture that is different from our own. We have to ask who the people
are that define, control, articulate, and display art within our society.
We must understand that we are in a postmodern period and our actions haven't
followed suit to our social system. Learned pattern behaviors of the
Enlightenment period are
still causing many to invert what they do not fully understand, and never
will. We are a made society filled with different cultures, ideas, beliefs,
values, and art.