British tattoo art revealed

Abstract:

In this talk, Dr Matt Lodder will discuss both the research content of his current exhibition T attoo: British Tattoo Art Revealed at the National Maritime Museum in Falmouth, Cornwall, and the practical issues of creating a major exhibition of a marginalised art form, with material drawn primarily from disparate and uncatalogued private collections. Spanning 400 years from the middle decades of the 17th century to the present day, the exhibition includes 400 objects including photographs; drawings; paintings; prints; commissioned sculpture; tattoo tools (including rare early pieces from the Science Museum); rare books; two tattooing studios recreated from collected and re-sourced objects; and several pieces of preserved human skin. As the most intimate of all art forms, the show argues that tracing the history of tattooing becomes a proxy through which broader art and cultural histories of Britain can be read, and through which insights on class, gender, empire, anxiety, nationalism, politics, religion and more can be gleaned


VMMA-Pitt Rivers Museum Seminar Series Michaelmas 2018

Pitt Rivers Museum Lecture Theatre (off Robinson Close)

Fridays at 1pm (Weeks 1-8)

Convened by Gemma Angel and Marcus Banks