Tag: Things and Ink

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Wim Delvoye: Tattooed Pigs

Wim Delvoye is a Flemish contemporary artist, whose work breaks boundaries and challenges notions of ethics. His art aims to be provocative and that is certainly what Tattooed Pigs and Art Farm does.

He started tattooing pig skin in the early 1990s and wrapped his art work around polyester moulds. It wasn’t until 1997 that Wim started to use live pigs as his canvas and in 2004 he bought a farm near Beijing, where animal welfare laws are not as strict as other places.

Art Farm sees the piglets cared for by specialists who clean the pig’s wounds and moisturise the pig’s newly tattooed skin regularly. The animals are anaesthised and tattooed by up to three people at a time, with images including Disney Princesses and fashion brand logos.

Buyers can choose whether to buy the tattooed pigs alive or as taxidermy specimens when they die of natural causes. The pigs are not killed for their skin but they live and grow to be older pigs, in order to produce the live canvas that is their skin. The tattoos grow as the pigs do, images stretch and get bigger as does their value and desirability.

The animals skin is has been known to sell for more than £55,000, skin was sold to Chanel to be made into two exclusive handbags. Animal rights campaigners have complained that the pigs are put under unneccassary trauma and being abused for commercial profit.

Wim has also tattooed a man’s back in 2006 with a mixture of Japanese koi fish and Christian iconography. The piece was sold and the buyer will collect the piece when the wearer has died.

What do you think about Tattooed Pigs, is it art or animal cruelty?

 

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Tattoo Inspired Leg Braces

Hope Laliberte is an eight-year-old Disney lover who has cerebral palsy, a condition she has lived with since birth.

She has to wear leg braces and has always had them decorated with skulls or superheroes.

When it came to getting her leg braces redecorated she dismissed the pre-made designs offered to her by the hospital, instead she wanted Disney Villains.

Her mum decided to contact family friend – tattoo artist and owner of Up in Flames Tattoo, in Massachusetts – Aaron Guillemette, who faced the challenge of customising Hope’s leg braces.

The braces are made from resin and acrylic plastic so instead of painting them Aaron decided to create huge stickers with Ursual and Cruela de Ville on them. The polyurethane surface will protect the designs aiding their durability.

Images from Herald News

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Music Review: Brand New

Our guest blogger is inventory buyer, freelance writer and creator of Typewriter Teeth blog,  Amber Carnegie. This is the first in a series of music review posts in which Amber will be documenting her experiences at various music shows. First up is her review of the band Brand New who played at The Glee Club, Birmingham earlier this month… 

Earlier this year Brand New announced a small amount of intimate dates across the UK, in the minutes that they sold out, we were held in a sort of  limbo. Were we about to experience something that you can never find in an arena or witness knee deep in mud at a festival?

Mic-stands wrapped in flowers stood patiently waiting on the stage in a nod to The Smiths, before the band shook them as they opened with ‘Mene’, Brand New’s first recording in five years. Taking the lyrics ‘we don’t feel anything’ as our own before progressing into ‘Sink’ as if working back through their discography. In a raw instant the crowd was exposed and swept together into a close moment that could only be embraced in a venue like this. ‘Gasoline’ then followed the same fervent route, the distorted end constructed the quieter moments into ‘Millstone’.

For everyone in the room there is a track or an album that has pulled them through something or become a soundtrack to a period in their life. ‘The Devil And God Are Raging Inside Me’ illustrates something to me and that is what is so perfect about this set, to everyone in the crowd there was a meaning. But the moment that Brand New continued with ‘You Won’t Know’ is one that as fans we could share.

‘Sic Transit Gloria… Gloria Fades’ erupted into ‘Deja Entendu’, these favourite songs that still generate the same responsive passion that we all felt the first time we heard them more than a decade ago. Tracks that now stir emotional drunk sing-alongs at club nights and never fail to draw a crowd. ‘I Will Play My Game Beneath The Spin Light’ and ‘Okay I Believe You, But My Tommy Gun Don’t’ fittingly continued the teenage angst choir that had taken over the crowd with:

‘The kind of song that makes people glad to be where they are, with whomever they’re there with.’

Brand New persistently deliver incomparable shows, no matter where they play. With such a tight discography it is impossible to find a set list that doesn’t ensue an ardent atmosphere between the band and crowd. We were treated to an incredible full band version of ‘Brothers’ or ‘Untitled 03’ which is something I had never witnessed live before. Hearing a tracks like live for the first time really enhanced the night, making it stand out against all the other live shows I have been to.

‘Jesus Christ’ marks the final track to be performed by the entire band, winding down from an impassioned and perfect set, filled with everything that gets missed in a recording studio. Stirring every sentiment of nostalgia and of being in the moment.

Closing the show saw Jesse Lacey take the stage and lay every emotion out there for ‘Soco Amaretto Lime’. Usually at this moment the audience take the track for themselves,but in this close-knit venue Lacey clutched onto his words in an emotive and pained repetition with altered lyrics and a room silent in awe.

‘I’m just jealous cause you’re young and in love.’

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You Won’t Regret That Tattoo

Australian director Angie Bird has created a short yet heart-warming documentary, ‘You Won’t Regret That Tattoo’, that shows the stories and memories connected to the tattoos of an older generation. The film seeks to challenge the idea that ink is something that people will come to regret. The tattoos are there to commemorate occasions, whether good or bad, show love for those in their lives both past and present, and some of the tattoos are simply for fun, to make people laugh.

To hear more tattoo stories watch the documentary below:

If you’re anything like this group of interesting people you certainly won’t regret your tattoos later on in life…