Richard Hyatt: Bringing body art to galleries
In my world, a tattoo is a souvenir you brought home from a drunken escapade on Victory Drive, but unlike the hangover you have the next morning, that colorful body art in a delicate part of your anatomy is not going away.
OK, I'm Old School. I think of tattoos as a decoration on the bicep of a seafaring sailor or a long-distance truck driver. I see a college coed or the mother of a young child at the supermarket and imagine the regrets they'll have when their ink is as old as I am.
One in five Americans has a tattoo and among Millennials that number is dramatically higher. Though ink has moved from subcultures into polite society, I still did a double take when I noticed that the Columbus Museum was opening an exhibition on the history of body art in the Chattahoochee Valley.
"We Tattooed Your Father" is the name of the exhibit, which opened Feb. 21 and will be on display until June 26. It was partly inspired by "Break in the Battle," a 2009 art project that involved soldiers from Fort Benning.
Our museum is not breaking new ground. Other art museums around the country have presented displays on an ancient art form that only recently began to find acceptance.
Bringing body art into highbrow galleries adds legitimacy to a symbol of rebellion that you can't hang on the wall or exhibit in a glass display case. But that is an argument that should be fought in the art community.
More concerning is that the exhibit here is being displayed in a museum that is an expansion of our public school classrooms. Children of all ages take field trips to the Columbus Museum and parents love to take the kids there on weekends. To take that thought further, the museum is an arm of the Muscogee County School District.
By booking a show on tattoos, the museum runs the risk of getting involved in a subject that should be left to parents. It is legitimizing something most mothers and fathers don't want their children to explore until they're older.
Tattoos are not what they used to be, but public institutions still should not be involved in a project that in any way encourages children to turn their bodies into a piece of cheap canvas.
-- Richard Hyatt is an independent correspondent. Reach him at hyatt31906@knology.net.
This story was originally published February 27, 2016 at 10:13 PM with the headline "Richard Hyatt: Bringing body art to galleries ."