Listen to the audio version of the article
A gesture of belonging or independence? A design that makes us feel unique, inimitable, the tattoo is “forever” (or almost) like a declaration of love, like mourning. Why have men and women gotten tattoos for millennia and so many still continue to do so today?
At Mudec the exhibition “Tattoo. Stories from the Mediterranean” edited by Luisa Gnecchi Ruscone and Guido Guerzoni with the collaboration of Jurate Francesca Piacenti (until 28 July 2024 24Ore Cultura catalogue).
Studies, research and statistics document that Italy is in first place among the nations with the highest number of tattooed people, with 48% of the adult population, followed by Sweden (47%) and the USA (46%). It is a recent social and cultural phenomenon, but which significantly characterizes us, also by virtue of an ancient tradition, which few know. There are many followers of tattoos, unsuspected like Churchill or exhibitionists like Lady Gaga.
Rituals, forms and expressions of every era in every country
The exhibition project recounts tattooing from a historical, anthropological and cultural point of view, starting from the places where its first evidence was found: the Mediterranean basin. One of the oldest tattoos in the world present on a mummified human body dates back to over 5300 years ago, it belongs to the so-called mummy of the Iceman, known as Ötzi, found in the Italian Alps; some documents that come from the Alto Adige Archaeological Museum, dedicated to its discovery, introduce the visitor to the exhibition. The exhibition, created by the Dotdotdot design studio, enhances through a graphic and multimedia composition a rich documentation of objects, historical artefacts, instruments, sound materials, video installations, prints, engravings, texts and reproductions coming from various institutions and museum collections, such as the “Cesare Lombroso” Museum of Criminal Anthropology of the University of Turin and the National Museum of Popular Arts and Traditions of Rome and the Pontifical Museum, Pontifical Delegation for the Sanctuary of the Sanata Casa of Loreto, up to the private collections of the Queequeg Tattoo Studio & Gian Maurizio Fercioni Museum in Milan.
The exhibition retraces some fundamental stages of the evolution of tattooing, from the prehistoric genesis to the present day, choosing the Mediterranean areas as its plot while delving into other continents with materials and cards.