Body art links the individual to a social group as an insider, by asserting a shared body art language. Or it distinguishes outsiders, by proclaiming a separate identity. This concept is explored in Identities, which includes exhibits on tattooing in Japan, New Zealand, the Marquesan Islands, and the contemporary U.S, as well as African and Western piercing.

Elaborately pictorial Japanese tattooing started among men in certain occupational groups, such as firemen and rickshaw drivers. Upper class people disapproved of tattooing and instead wore fine clothing forbidden to the lower class. In parts of Polynesia, on the other hand, geometric tattoo designs indicated high rank, and the most powerful people had the most extensive tattoos.

Body art practices can change rapidly, reflecting larger shifts in society. Tattooing virtually disappeared in Polynesia, partly due to Western influence, but it is now being revived as an assertion of ethnic identity. Western body art, including everything from piercing to shoe styles, also indicates a person's social identity.

In a complex and diverse society, when certain types of body art are shunned by some, they can become signs of rebellion for others. But as unfashionable body art practices become the norm, they lose their power to define group membership and instead express individual choices and life experiences.

A gallery wall displays the photographs of Sandi Fellman, whose images show the elaborate pictorial tattoos on Japanese men. Other highlights include photographs of Maori tattoos, called "Moko," along with a wooden door panel that features the same designs used in Maori tattooing, as well as photographs of full-bodied tattoos on Polynesian men of the Marquesas Islands.

This section also explores contemporary Western tattooing. It includes traditional "flash" dating from the turn of the century to the present, a collection tattoo machines, a gallery of photographs by William DeMichele of tattooed people, and "Flash," a film produced by the Museum. The film includes interviews with both tattoo artists as well as with people who have tattoos.

Also featured in Identities is a section on piercing, which includes a gallery wall of photographs by Bettina Witteven, whose images depict "neo-tribal" piercing in the US, as well as a display case of Zulu ear plugs -- originally part of a coming-of-age ceremony to open a child's ears, so that he or she could develop an adult's understanding of life, and later, a sign of ethnic identity and beauty.

introduction | origins | representations
transformations | identities | distinctions | reinvention