The largest exhibition on the history of tattooing lands at CaixaForum Madrid

The Deputy Director General of the "la Caixa" Foundation, Elisa Durán; the President of the Musée du quai Branly, Emmanuel Kasarhérou; the Director of CaixaForum Madrid, Isabel Fuentes, and the curator and founder of the magazine HEY! Modern Art & Pop Culture magazine, Anne Richard, presented the exhibition 'Tattoo. Art under the skin'. Produced and organised by the Musée du Quai Branly - Jaques Chirac in Paris and the "la Caixa" Foundation, it presents more than 240 pieces from all over the world, including paintings, drawings, books, silicone with ink, tattoo tools, masks, photographs, stamps and 9 audiovisuals. The event was also attended by the lender Henk Schiffmacher, renowned in the tattoo world for having tattooed members of the bands Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam and the leader of Nirvana, Kurt Cobain.

The exhibition explores, from an unprecedented anthropological approach, the different uses of tattoos throughout history and the social role played by this ancestral practice in the world's cultures: from repression to vindication. Visitors will travel through tattooing on every continent, discovering its origins, the evolution of techniques and the way in which different currents linked to the art of tattooing, which is now a worldwide phenomenon, coexist in syncretism.

Tattooing has a great technical and aesthetic history of more than 5,000 years, where tattoo artists and tattooed people are its daily spokespersons. For the first time in Spain, the largest historical exhibition that delves into tattooing as an artistic gesture and pays tribute to those artists who have made the art of tattooing evolve, but whose role has never been claimed in museums, can be seen for the first time in Spain.

In the midst of the tattoo boom, it is estimated that 12% of Europe's citizens have at least one tattoo. However, the fascination with tattooing has a long history: from the impulse of the fairground attraction to the immediacy of street culture, tattooing embodies the desire to express to others not only what we are, but also what we want to be, thus transforming the skin into a particular canvas.

When the Musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac launched this exhibition in Paris in 2014, it invited the most eminent tattoo artists of the day to create a work on silicone replicas of different parts of the body. Subsequently, at each stage of its itinerancy around the world, the exhibition has been enriched with new works commissioned from tattoo artists of different nationalities, ranging from traditional tattoos to new creations.

Among the more than 240 pieces on display are 22 prototypes that hyper-realistically reproduce parts of the human body and which have been moulded in experimental material and tattooed by masters of the art of tattooing, including Kari Barba (American tattoo artist), Tin-Tin (French tattoo artist), Horiyoshi III (Japanese tattoo artist), Felix Leu (Swiss tattoo artist), Mark Kopua (New Zealand tattoo artist), Jack Rudy (American tattoo artist), Xed LeHead (English tattoo artist), Colin Dale (Danish tattoo artist) and Chimé (Polynesian tattoo artist).

It is in this ecosystem that the works of two Madrid-based artists are presented at the opening and exhibited for the first time. The Madrid-based tattoo artist Laura Juan reflects in her work on the social isolation during the pandemic in Spain, the uncertainty, the silent - and invisible - advance of the virus and the loss of freedom. The work of Jee Sayalero, a Venezuelan tattoo artist, delves into the term isthmus: in this small strip of land there is an exchange between different cultures, with allusions to Japanese folklore and works by artists such as Pablo Picasso or Salvador Dalí.

These silicone pieces constitute a landmark in the exhibition, along with objects, drawings, engravings and photographs that show the ancient practices of tattooing on all continents. Thus, what was originally an ephemeral inscription on the epidermis of a particular person can be preserved, studied and enhanced to reveal the history and aesthetics of tattooing.

The exhibition, most of whose works come from the Musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac, also brings together an exceptional collection of pieces from around fifty lenders from countries such as the United States, Japan, France, Thailand and the United Kingdom.

Among the pieces on display are an electric pen presented by the inventor Thomas Edison in 1877 (the forerunner of today's tattoo machine); a boot for transporting the tools of travelling tattoo artists; an acrylic portrait of Artoria, a famous sideshow artist of the 1920s; an original album by Rich Mingus, edited by Henk Schiffmacher in 2011, with photographs, postcards and fragments of periodicals related to tattooing since the 19th century; a statuette flute from the late Mayan period with depictions of facial tattoos; 19th century tattooing tools and utensils from Indonesia, Burma, Tunisia, Argentina and Australia; and portraits of groups with their identifying tattoos, such as the Central American mara gang or the Japanese yakuza mafia.

It also recognises artists who preserve this ancient art, such as the 104-year-old Filipino tattoo artist Whang-od Oggay, considered to be the last master to use the batok (traditional handmade tattoo), or the Maori of New Zealand, who practice moko, the 'art of sculpting the skin', a symbol of indigenous collective consciousness.

The tour, with five different stops, starts from a global perspective to understand the link between tattooing and marginalisation, delinquency and its spectacularisation. In the second area, tattooing is presented as an art in movement, with emphasis on its expansion throughout Japan, North America and Europe from its origins to the present day. The third stop shows the revival of traditional tattooing in New Zealand, Samoa, Polynesia, Indonesia, East Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand. From the 1970s onwards, new schools emerged and expanded to new territories around the world, such as China and Taiwan, as well as Latin America, with Chicano tattooing, an aspect that is dealt with in the fourth area. The exhibition ends with a reflection on tattooing today - and its perpetual desire for renewal - differentiating between two currents: one, marked mainly by the reinterpretation of historical genres, and the other, which explores the possibilities of the graphic arts beyond the classic codes.

Tattooing as a graphic medium of world language has changed in meaning throughout its history. The evolution of this practice - which owes its name to the Polynesian tatau (open wound) - discovered by Captain Cook's European crew in the 18th century, has been the result of exchanges between countries, between marginal and dominant currents, between centres and peripheries. For centuries, it has played a discriminating role, as a mark of subjugation and of dishorning or loss of identity. Overexposed today because of the development of the Internet and the media interest it arouses, tattoos are writing their contemporary history to the rhythm of technological advances.

Since the mid-19th century, tattoos have become the bearer of intimate or social messages. As is the case with ethnic groups such as the Maori, for example, who develop this practice as an identity and social form, a secret language is imprinted on the body of the tattooed that perpetuates both a social legend and graphic styles conditioned by the rudimentary techniques of the time. It is at this point that the non-tattooed begin to pay attention and to identify the tattooed with strong prejudices.

The tattooed, considered as marginal, became a character of spectacle from 1840, on the occasion of the Chicago World's Fair, the catalyst for the first travelling circuses, which incorporated the tattooed into their shows on the same level as the bearded women or the sword swallowers, or installed them in the outdoor booths at the entrance of the tents as sideshows, secondary attractions.

Since Marco Polo in the 13th century, tattooing has travelled through expeditions, the capture of prisoners and the routes of adventurers. In 1891, the invention of the electric tattoo machine by the American Samuel O'Reilly encouraged the spread of tattooing. Much of the effervescence of American tattooing stemmed from the observation of Japanese irezumi. Thus, American and Japanese tattooists crossed the Pacific to exchange their secrets. Throughout the 20th century, the international dialogue between activists intensified and tattooists from all over the world began to set up clubs, the first of which was founded in 1953 in Bristol, UK. Such meetings opened a new chapter in the evolution and artistic history of tattooing.

In this area, the exhibition pays tribute to the work of great masters who have revolutionised the contemporary tattoo medium, including the artist Don Ed Hardy (b. 1945), who has fostered international artistic exchanges and transformed the fascination with the ancient Japanese art of tattooing into creative energy.

In Western Europe, the Ötzi mummy, more than 4,500 years old, is the earliest real evidence of the practice of tattooing. 2,000 years later, some of the 200 Celtic peoples who then settled in much of Western Europe (France, Belgium, Italy, western Germany) also had tattoo marks on their bodies. In the 19th century, tattooing was revamped and spread across the continent: people displayed their tattoos in hovels, but also in the comfort of salons and at court; they were even worn by members of European royal families, and the designs were widely reported in the popular press. In the 20th century, tattooing became part of art history: in the 1980s, the Swiss tattoo artist Felix Leu (1945-2002), alias Don Feliz, rejected any distinction between academic and popular art. But long before him, in London, Sutherland MacDonald (1850-1937), known as "the Michelangelo of tattooing", had already had the words "tattoo artist" printed on his business card in 1891.

Traditional tattooing in Oceania and Southeast Asia has also undergone a revolution in its ethnographic, tribal or magical conception since the end of the 1970s: the practice of ancient tattooing, subject to the constant exchanges brought about by the development of transport and tourism, has become globalised and is now part of a network of influence between all societies worldwide.

For example, in New Zealand, the moko, a tattoo of curves and spirals inspired by fern shoots that was the specific ornamentation of chiefs and warriors, and today is considered a national treasure (taonga); or in the islands of Samoa, the pe'a (male tattoo), which was necessary to obtain a wife and indicated belonging to the village and to the group of young men charged with serving and protecting the chiefs; or the legacy of the kalinga tattoo, embodied today by the artist.

Whang-od Oggay, who at 104 is considered the oldest tattoo artist in the world and the last practitioner of this age-old gesture carried out by warrior tribes.

At the same time, new schools emerged, indicative of the artistic dynamism that has characterised the evolution of contemporary tattooing. In 1977, tattooists Charlie Cartwright, Jack Rudy and Freddy Negrete pushed the boundaries of detail and shading. This new Chicano tattooing technique spread inside the prisons where gang members from Central America were incarcerated, as well as among the Latin American populations living on the US border. Their tattoo artists return to the imagery of their history and make graphic twists by boldly re-reading the past: they decide to provoke a resurgence of the symbols of cultural heroism in new compositions and colour palettes. At this point, graffiti and its specific typographies, neighbourhood art, lowrider aesthetics (customised cars), mural painting or Catholic religious iconography are gaining ground on the skin.

In China, on the other hand, tattooing has always been an ancestral practice among minorities settled in territories not administered by the powers that be due to their geographical remoteness. It was banned in the 1960s, during Mao Tse Tung's Cultural Revolution, which considered it a manifestation of impurity and dishonesty. However, the practice of tattooing has been making a comeback since 2000, and the creators of this revival are inspired by both the pop culture of the entertainment industry, with its profusion of playful images (manga, video games, cinema), and the vast heritage of Chinese historical iconography.

Although tattoos are not always decipherable, they are the mark of one's relationship with oneself, of the individual with the group and of the tattooist with the tattooed. After the styles pioneered by the tattoo artists Leo Zulueta and later Alex Binnie, Xed LeHead and Yann Black, a new generation has brought tattooing into the third millennium.

Today, two currents can be distinguished: on the one hand, a trend that bases its work on the reinterpretation of historical genres, adding to Japanese irezumi, American old school tattooing or Chicano fine line the wild vein of Russian gulag tattooing or the stark French line; and on the other hand, a trend that formulates aesthetics liberated from classical codes to explore the possibilities of graphic arts, in which typographies, pixels, patterns and outlines give rise to other types of motifs and compositions bordering on abstraction.

In parallel to the exhibition, CaixaForum Madrid is organising a full programme of innovative activities, coordinated by the expert Clara Peñalver, including a series of lectures and round tables on the history of tattooing, with its lights and shadows, and trends in this art form, as well as the repair tattoo that helps many people to find themselves again after illnesses such as breast cancer. All of this will be presented by personalities such as Laura Cubero, director of BAUM Fest Barcelona Tattoo Expo; Cristina Vara Ocón, PhD in Contemporary History from the University of Granada, and Mariló Fernández, a tattoo artist specialising in damaged and scarred skin.

There will also be a themed night with a live graffiti exhibition by the artist Albert Bonet, a concert and a performance, as well as a live tattoo demonstration by BAUM Fest, where three tattoo artists with different styles will show their work. There will also be various talks: one exploring the link between tattooing and transhumanism, with Albert Grau Loyola, vice-president of the Spanish Tattoo Federation and director and professor at the European School of Tattooing and Piercing; another on the custom of collecting tattooed skins, with Josep Martí, PhD in Cultural Anthropology from Philipps-Universität Marburg, and a talk on how cinema, literature and tattooing feed back into each other, led by writer Eva Campos Navarro.