American Museum of Natural History Research Library
author: American Museum of Natural History

Body Art: Marks of Identity (Exhibition)
birth: 1999 November 20
death: 2000 May 29
Exhibition. Opened November 20, 1999 and closed May 29, 2000. Located in Section 20, Floor 4 in the LeFrak Family Gallery at the American Museum of Natural History. Body Art: Marks of Identity explored the ways in which human beings around the world, past and present, decorate their bodies.
Summary
Body Art: Marks of Identity explored the ways in which human beings around the world, past and present, decorate their bodies. Curated by Enid Schildkrout, chair and curator, Division of Anthropology, the exhibition examined the historical and cultural significance behind ancient and modern body art practices including tattooing, piercing, body painting, body shaping or reshaping, henna, makeup, and scarification. The exhibition presented over 600 objects and many images from around the world dating from c. 3000 B.C. to the present, including sculptures, paintings, contemporary and historical photographs, rare books, engravings, and films. More than half of the objects and images presented were from the Museum’s collection; the remainder were from public and private collections from the U.S. and abroad (1, p. 1; 2, p. 2-3).
Section titles in the exhibition were (1, p. 3-9):
*Introduction
*Origins
*Representations
*Transformations
*Identities
*Distinctions
*Reinvention
Themes covered in the exhibit included (1, p. 3):
*Body-decorating implements, such as Japanese, Polynesian, and contemporary Western tattooing tools.
*Tattoo and body painting stamps from Borneo, Africa, and Native North America
*Ceramic and wooden sculptures and masks depicting body painting, piercing, scarification, and tattooing
*Shoes worn by Chinese women with bound feet
*Textiles with patterns similar to scarification marks or body painting designs
*Ornaments including lip plugs and ear spools from Africa, South America, Mexico, and the U.S.
*Antique flash (the drawings used in Western tattooing)
*Rare books -- including the oldest known book ever published on body art -- engravings, and paintings showing early depictions of body art
*Close-up images of Japanese tattoos and American men and women with neo-tribal piercing.
Some of the objects in the exhibit included (1, p. 3):
*20th century painting of Edith Burchett, painted by her husband, George Burchett, a famous English tattooist, who covered his wife’s body with tattoos and then painted her portrait
*Oil painting of a Chinook Indian woman from British Columbia by Paul Kane, a 19th century Canadian painter, showing the slanted forehead of the mother and the cradleboard, which flattened her baby’s head
*Japanese woodblock print showing a woman with black teeth, a practice done to enhance their appearance
*Nayarit ceramic figure from ancient Mexico dating to c. 300 BC presents piercing, a practice that is known from ornaments and figurines dating back thousands of years in many parts of the world
*Carved wooden stool from the Iatmul people in Papua New Guinea, collected for the Museum by Margaret Mead on an expedition in the 1920s, illustrating scarification among the Iatmul men during initiation
*Yoruba offering bowl held by a female figure representing a deity whose body is decorated with scarification patterns
*Photographs by Sandi Fellman, whose images show the elaborate, pictorial tattoos on Japanese men
*Photographs of full-bodied tattoos on Polynesian men of the Marquesas Islands
*Photographs by William DeMichele of tattooed people
*Photographs by Bettina Witteven, whose images depict “neo-tribal” piercing in the U.S., as well as a display case of Zulu ear plugs
This is a condensed summary of the exhibition. For additional information, see Sources and/or Related Resources.