TATTOOS: Ritual. Identity. Obsession. Art, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, ON

Gord and I had heard that the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum) had an exhibit that sounded interesting ... TATTOOS: Ritual. Identity. Obsession. Art.  We both have a couple tattoos and love watching shows like Ink Master, etc.

The show is here until the beginning of September.  We checked it out this afternoon and it was indeed interesting.  Besides items and pictures with lots of descriptions, there are also videos that you can watch.

There were different areas:

1. Global to marginal
2. Art on the move
3. Reviving tradtions
4. New territories

Here's just some of the things we saw ...

Bundle of tattoo needles, Tunisia (early 20th century)

Tattoo embroidered on the back of an indigenous woman
Papua New Guinea (1930-35)

Tattoo machine made in prison (20th century)

Trunk of a travelling tattoo artist (20th century)

Lady Viola

Charlie Wagner tattooing his wife (born 1968)

Jessie Knight, the first English female tattoo artist to open a shop (in 1936) -
I thought this would make a cool teeshirt

Karl Oergel spent 20 years getting his body tattooed.  No one would tattoo
his face or hands so he did his face himself by looking in a mirror!

Sailor Jerry flash sheets

Rusty Field was named "the most tattooed woman in 
England" by the Guinness Book of World Records

Ed Hardy

Tattooing needle, Greenland, early 20th century

Tattoo by Horiyoshi III

Armenian woman with identifying tattoos
who were forced into prostitution (1919)

Concentration camp survivor Aljoscha Lebedew with ID
mark tattooed on his arm

Fang-Od Oggay, now almost 100 years old,
is one of the last Kalinga master tattooists -
since she is "the face" of the exhibit, I was
surprised there is no teeshirt with this image
(I would have bought one)

Isabel Muñoz spent three weeks inside several prisons
 in El Salvadoar and photographed mara gangs

It's a very interesting exhibit and you should check it out.