Tattoos again: I've got it
Monday's post about tattoos sparked a bit of debate. We struggled over the old question of what makes "art" and I tried to find an analogy to define my position on the subject. Maybe it was today's gunshot murder case or just enough time marinating on the subject, but I finally came up with a fitting comparison.
temporary tattoo : real tattoo : : water pistol : real pistol
One is just child's play; the other is for keeps. Actually, sticking on a temporary tattoo compared with the extended process of applying an actual tattoo makes the difference more like being squirted with water versus being riddled with bullets from a machine gun. But you get my drift. The impact, force, and significance of one are much greater than that of the other.
Of course, that's just my opinion and you're free to take it or leave it once again. If there's anything I should have learned about art by now, it's that different folks have different opinions of what's good and what's not, and who am I to disagree? One man's junk is another man's art. Just don't say that tattoos and temporary tattoos are the same thing.
1 comment:
I like your analogy too, as long as the disposable camera's photos also dissolve after a few days. But I stand by my point.
In the case of tattoos, the medium and method of application do not just raise the work to a higher quality, but to an entirely different plane of experience (at least for the artist and the canvas, if not for the impartial viewer).
But now I'm getting out of semantics entirely and into metaphysics. Besides, I hear that you've got a tattoo yourself, so I probably don't need to convince you that there's something special about them. Good luck on those exams!
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