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Body Art:
Marks of Identity is a new exhibition at the American Museum
of Natural History exploring the ways in which human beings around
the world, past and present, decorate their bodies. Celebrating
both cultural invention and individual artistry, Body Art:
Marks of Identity presents over 600 objects and many images
from around the world dating from c. 3000 B.C. to the present,
including superb sculptures, paintings, contemporary and historical
photographs, rare books, engravings, and films. More than half
of the objects and images presented are from the Museum's collection;
the remainder is from public and private collections in the U.S.
and abroad. The exhibition examines the historical and cultural
significance behind ancient and modern body art practices including
tattooing, piercing, body painting, body reshaping, henna, and
scarification.
The human
body is a unique canvas that has been decorated in many ways for
millennia by people all over the world. Since the beginning of
human history, people have embellished their bodies for many reasons,
but there is no known culture in which people do not paint, pierce,
tattoo, reshape, or simply adorn their bodies. Whether with permanent
marks like tattoos or scars, or temporary decorations like makeup,
clothing, and hairstyles, body art is a way of signaling an individual's
place in society, marking a special moment, celebrating a transition
in life or simply following a fashion.
What messages
do these practices carry? How have they been used to identify
us as individuals or as members of a group? How have ideas about
what people consider beautiful changed over time? Whether permanent
or temporary, found on a bowl or on a belly, these designs, patterns,
and shapes are all marks of identity. Body art carries powerful
messages about the decorated person. Colors, designs, and the
use of particular techniques are part of a visual language with
specific cultural meanings. To decipher this language, one needs
to understand the shared symbols, myths, social values, and individual
memories that are drawn on the body. Since body art can draw attention
to cultural differences, it is also a means by which people exoticize
and sometime ostracize others. But body art in all cultures changes,
and it is an ideal canvas for individual creativity and self-reinvention.
It can also be a way for people to challenge social values and
cultural assumptions about beauty, identity, and the body itself.
Some of the
artifacts showcased in Body Art: Marks of Identity include
body-decorating implements, such as Japanese, Polynesian, and
contemporary Western tattooing tools; tattoo and body painting
stamps from Borneo, Africa, and Native North America; ceramic
and wooden sculptures and masks depicting body painting, piercing,
scarification, and tattooing; shoes worn by Chinese women with
bound feet; textiles with patterns similar to scarification marks
or body painting designs; ornaments including lip plugs and ear
spools from Africa, South America, Mexico, and the U.S.; antique
flash (the drawings used in Western tattooing); and rare books
-- including the oldest known book ever published on body art
-- engravings, and paintings showing early depictions of body
art. Among the many photographs displayed are close-up images
of Japanese tattoos and American men and women with neo-tribal
piercing.
Body Art:
Marks of Identity was curated by Dr. Enid Schildkrout, Chair
and Curator, Division of Anthropology.
introduction
| origins | representations
transformations | identities
| distinctions | reinvention
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