April 2014
INDELIBLE
TABLE OF CONTEN 4
Russian Criminal Tattoos : Breaking the Code Will Hodgkinson
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Irezumi - Horimyo An Interview with Skin Deep
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Ta Moko - Don’t
Take this Art at Face Value SaraLynn White
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Polynesian Tattoos - Deep Family Ties Melissa Jackson
RussiAn Criminal Tattoos By will Hodgkinson
Breaking the Code
Danzig Baldaev grew up in a Russian children’s home, his father having been denounced as an enemy of the people. He was later ordered to take a job as a warden in Kresty, an infamous Leningrad prison, where he worked from 1948 to 1981. It was a job that allowed Baldaev to continue his father’s work as an ethnographer – by documenting the tattoos of criminals. Heavy with symbolism and hidden meanings, the tattoos depicted a complex world of hierarchies, disgraces and achievements. Mostly anti-Soviet and frequently obscene, they are a portal into a violent world that ran alongside the worst excesses of the Communist era.
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The KGB found out about Baldaev’s tattoo project but, incredibly, they sanctioned it. “They realised the value of being able to establish the facts about a convict or criminal: his date and place of birth, the crimes he had committed, the camps where he had served time, and even his psychological profile,” Baldaev wrote, shortly before his death in 2005. Baldaev’s archive of criminal tattoo drawings would probably have died alongside its creator had Damon Murray and Stephen Sorrell of the design publishers Fuel not heard about it from a Russian literary agent. “We visited his widow, Valentina, in her tiny flat in the St Petersburg suburbs, where all of these drawings were stacked in bin liners,” says Murray. “She didn’t know what to do with them, but she was concerned that her family would throw them out when she died. So we bought them off her.” Having published three volumes of Baldaev’s drawings in the Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopaedia series, Murray and Sorrell are now launching their first exhibition, giving the public a chance to see the original drawings for the first time. In effect, the tattoos formed a service record of a criminal’s transgressions. Skulls denoted a criminal authority. A cat represented a thief. On a woman, a tattoo of a penis was the kitemark of a prostitute. Crosses on knuckles denoted the number of times the wearer had been to prison, and a shoulder insignia marked solitary confinement, while a swastika represented not a fondness for fascism but a refusal to accept the rules
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“These are the sins of the state,” he wrote. “They are manifest in the world of the prisonzs and camps, in the terrible plague patches of tattoos.”
of prison society. A criminal with no tattoos was devoid of status, but to have a tattoo when you hadn’t earned it – bearing the skull sign of a criminal authority, for example – often resulted in the tattoo being forcibly removed with a scalpel by fellow prisoners. And “grins” (depicting communist leaders in obscene or comical positions) were a way for criminal to put two fingers up at the authorities. “The grin is a bravado thing,” Murray says. “Tattooing was illegal in prisons, so prisoners made tattoos by melting down boot heels and mixing the solution with blood and urine. Having an anti-Soviet grin was
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IrezumI HORIMYO An interview with Skin Deep
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way from the great families of Irezumi, Horimyo works close to tradition. He’s one of the rare tattoo artists to work only with Tebori. Horimyo is a true Buddhist and under his fingers, Irezumi is a true act of faith.
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For how long have you been tattooing? I’m 31 years old now and I have worked as a tattoo artist for 7 and a half years now. I first studied drawing and at that time I travelled in the US where I met a lot of tattoo artists. I compared my drawing skills to theirs and I thought that I could compete. Of course, I already liked tattoos, but since then I decided to become a tattoo artist. At first, I studied by myself with an American imported machine. It was just before I met a Tebori artist. He introduced me to the traditional ways and technique. How did you become his apprentice? In 1998, I and some friends who organised some kind of event including tattoo and music. He was there. At first, we became friends as we are almost the same age. When he showed me his work, it was the first time I had ever seen traditional stuff. His was really original. After he convinced me to get back to traditional style and technique, he taught me to draw it. At that time, he didn’t have any apprentices, he was used to working alone. So I became his apprentice, but without the usual strict relationship between a master and his student. Nowadays, a lot of ‘Teborists’ draw the line with the machine and fill the tattoo in by hand. You don’t, why? At first, my intention was to do the same. For obvious reasons, of course, because it’s easier to draw the curves. I talked to my master about my plans but he got angry. It was out of the question. He has tattooed since he was 18 years old and he attaches great importance to the traditional way. Outlines and fill in must be
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done all by hand, that’s his way. Your style is a bit apart from the traditional designs… I am a traditional artist but my style is close to European culture. I like Europe, the mainland has a story. I would be really glad to go there. I’m a great fan of Dali, Giger and then Kyosai, Hokusai… I take my inspiration from everywhere. But I want also to go back a really traditional way of designing the tattoo, with less details. My master came from Osaka’s tattoo style. My influences as Japanese tattoo artists are Horiuno, not the famous one from the Kanto but the one from the West, with a very traditional style. Horitsune from Osaka also is a great inspiration. I like Japanese tattoos from Osaka. The style is huge, on a high-scale work. Irezumi from the East is much more meticulous. Are there a lot of true Teborists? Just a few. Young people mostly use machines now. The ‘hari’ is a really difficult tool, what are the pluses? It’s potential is very important, it’s possibilities are huge. I can do the same job with the hari as with the machine. Some customers say that it’s painless. I think that the relationship with the customer is different too. Of course it’s longer, so it’s important for the customer to take time and think about the design he’ll choose.
them like Japanese designs but the other half like American style. The Tebori technique can do everything, that’s its strength. Tattooing is also connected, to me spirituality. I leave a bit of my soul in each work that I do. Tebori is much more appropriate to feel it and the relationship with the customer is stronger. Before each session, I pray. This is an idea that lays in you artist’s name, what does it mean? I work under this name for 3 years now.
How many customers do you have each day? No more than 2. I only accept customers that come to me by word of mouth. My customers are not yakuzas. Half of
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Ta MokO Don’t take this art at face value By SaraLynn White
The twists, turns and spirals of the inked designs have b cinated and frightened outsiders. It’s said that curiosi ers during the 19th century traded gunpowder with th for the tattooed heads of their dead warriors. The desig brought scorn from foreigners who viewed them as pr
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both fasity seekhe MÄ ori gns also rimitive.
Ta moko - traditional Māori tattooing, often on the face - is a taonga (treasure) to Māori for which the purpose and applications are sacred. Every moko contains ancestral tribal messages specific to the wearer. These messages tell the story of the wearer’s family and tribal affiliations, and their place in these social structures. A moko’s message would also contain the wearer’s ‘value’ by way of their genealogy, and their knowledge and standing in their social level. Kirituhi means skin art and describes more general tattooing.
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"You may lose your wife and sures; but of cannot be dep by death. It w nament and c your last day
- Mori Netana Waimana
e your house, d other treayour moko, you prived except will be your orcompanion until y."
a Whakaari of
Reviving art form Ta moko as an artform declined during the 20th century, however in recent times it has been revived as an important art form among Māori that is worn as an expression of cultural pride and integrity. Māori writer / academic Dr Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, who is Professor of Psychology at Waikato University says: “Ta moko today is much more than a fashion statement, a passing fad for Māori. It is about who we are, and whom we come from. It is about where we are going, and how we choose to get there. And it is about for always, forever.”
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