SKIN TRADE

Don't worry, dude. I got your back.

The BBC has an interesting report today about a man who has an elaborate full-back tattoo that, though it’s attached to his body, he’s sold to an art collector. Yeah, that’s one’s hard to wrap your head around. Let’s put in another way. The man, Tim Steiner, earned $161,000 from German art collector Rik Reinking for rights to the piece. As part of the deal Steiner is required to sit shirtless in a gallery three times a year as a piece of living art, which isn’t a bad way to make extra cash, we suppose. Especially when some of the exhibitions have occurred at the Louvre in Paris, Civita di Bagnoregio in Rome, the Art Farm in Beijing, and the Museum of Old and New Art in Hobart, Tasmania.

And as befits all good art, the exhibitions will continue even posthumously. After Steiner shuffles off this mortal coil, Reinking takes full ownership of his skin, which will be removed so the tattoo can be framed and displayed. Some people, not surprisingly, have called the unusual arrangement ghoulish, but those people perhaps have no idea how strange modern art can get. Steiner, who sees himself as merely a temporary mounting for the tattoo, is happy, if not exactly eager, to be immortalized on museum walls. He considers tattooing the ultimate art form. “Painting on canvas is one thing,” he says, “painting on skin with needles is a whole other story.”

The creator of the piece, Belgian artist Wim Delvoye, would doubtless agree. He’s known in inking circles, not only for tattooing humans, but also pigs, whose skins he peddles. So Steiner’s sell-off of his own

hide isn’t really new. The pigs may be getting the better deal, though. They get to root around in mud and slop to their heart’s content until they die of old age. Steiner still presumably has to earn a living a somehow. He probably should have had the pigs’ lawyer negotiate his agreement.

We like tattoo art, but this skinning business is obviously a practice that’s legitimized by social status. Put someone’s framed epidermis on your wall at home and you’re anything from seriously weird to a psychopath/subject of a murder inquiry; hang it in a gallery and wine swilling upper crusty types call you a collector. But that’s sort of an encapsulation of how the entire world works, isn’t it? Rob an old lady at a cash machine and you’re a thief; take away her pension and you’re a politician. Heavy drug usage in the ghetto is a crime wave; heavy drug usage in suburbia is a public health problem. We can do this all day, but we’ll move on.

Belgium, Germany, Tasmainia, China, Beijing, Rome, Paris, Hobart, The Louvre, Rik Reinking, Tim Steiner, Wim Delvoye

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

March 15

1937—H.P. Lovecraft Dies

American sci-fi/horror author Howard Phillips Lovecraft dies of intestinal cancer in Providence, Rhode Island at age 46. Lovecraft died nearly destitute, but would become the most influential horror writer of all time. His imaginary universe of malign gods and degenerate cults was influenced by his explicitly racist views, but his detailed and procedural style of writing, which usually pitted men of science or academia against indescribable monsters, remains as effective today as ever.

March 15

2011—Illustrator Michel Gourdon Dies

French pulp artist Michel Gourdon, who was the less famous brother of Alain Gourdon, aka Aslan, dies in Coudray, France aged eighty-five. He is known mainly for the covers he painted for the imprint Flueve Noir, but worked for many companies and produced nearly 3,500 book fronts during his career.

March 14

1964—Ruby Found Guilty of Murder

In the U.S. a Dallas jury finds nightclub owner and organized crime fringe-dweller Jack Ruby guilty of the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald. Ruby had shot Oswald with a handgun at Dallas Police Headquarters in full view of multiple witnesses and photographers. Allegations that he committed the crime to prevent Oswald from exposing a conspiracy in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy have never been proven.

March 13

1925—Scopes Monkey Trial Ends

In Tennessee, the case of Scopes vs. the State of Tennessee, involving the prosecution of a school teacher for instructing his students in evolution, ends with a conviction of the teacher and establishment of a new law definitively prohibiting the teaching of evolution. The opposing lawyers in the case, Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan, both earn lasting fame for their participation in what was a contentious and sensational trial.

March 12

1933—Roosevelt Addresses Nation

Franklin D. Roosevelt uses the medium of radio to address the people of the United States for the first time as President, in a tradition that would become known as his “fireside chats”. These chats were enormously successful from a participation standpoint, with multi-millions tuning in to listen. In total Roosevelt would make thirty broadcasts over the course of eleven years.

BABE IN THE WOODS

This idyllic scene for Folco Romano’s 1958 novel Quand la chair s’éveille was painted by Alain Gourdon, aka Aslan. You'd never suspect a book with a cover this pretty was banned in France, but it was.

PERMANENT VACATION