10 colorful albums and books about body art

Body art often causes dubious associations (children's faces painted under animals are one of the most positive), although there are many worthy works and artists in this area. We tell you what books are worth reading for those who want to dive into the history of body art and find out how it is used by contemporary artists.

Decorated Skin: A World Survey of Body Art

Let's start with the basics. The pictures on the body in many tribes of different parts of the world wore a function not so much of decoration as of conveying meanings and helping in everyday affairs, such as disguise and hunting. In "Decorated Skin", book designer Karl Groning explored the history of wearable designs from both the Stone Age and modern times - that is, images with a thousand-year history have come into the lens, or rather, on the pages. To complete the work, Groning attracted art historians, ethnologists, and archeologists who shed light on the significance of specific patterns, tattoos, and scarification.

Covered: A Body of Work

Jen Seidel, an expensive and impressive glossy album in terms of format, was literally thrown off by the whole world: to organize its publication, the author launched a crowdfunding campaign. She brought enough money, and this year the world finally saw a 150-page collection of photos of body art in its usual sense (a kind of carnival costume that the body is dressed in) and the revelations of Seidel herself about how she sees this art.

Body art

Not for the first time the director of the Museum of Archeology and Anthropology at the University of Cambridge, Nicholas Thomas publishes historical books; "Body Art" is the fourth. In it, body art is viewed in the widest sense: interpretations of Soviet prison tattoos are combined with descriptions of Harlem drag balls and traditional drawings of African tribes. In the volume of 180 illustrations (on almost every page), but no less attention is paid to the semantic analysis of the aesthetics of a particular subculture.

Body Art Performing the Subject

The historian Amelia Jones drew attention to a rather narrow time span of body art development: the scientific study "Body Art / Performing the Subject", which was praised by the professors of history and art, begins in the 1960s. However, Jones worked on the concept in its broadest sense and analyzed not only the drawings on the body, but also other body modifications, which are being used by contemporary artists.

Body Painting: Masterpieces by Joanne Gair

One of the most famous artists of body art, Joan Geir, became famous after the cover of Vanity Fair with Demi Moore, on whom she posed in a painted costume, indistinguishable from the present. Following the work of makeup artists penetrated almost every glossy magazine, advertising and framed more than one music album. The symbolic work of Gair for two decades of work and got into "Body Painting".

Painted Alive: The Fine Art Bodypainting of Craig Tracy

Craig Tracy, the artist from New Orleans, runs the world's first gallery dedicated exclusively to body art. "Painted Alive" - the first collection of his works, in which Tracy tried to fit all his approaches. The interest of the artist is not limited to a single style; he prefers to transform female and male bodies in a realistic and conceptual way.

The Human Canvas: The World's Best Body Painting

"Imagine a picture in which the artist put all of himself, and then asked her to sing, dance or shout," the author of The Human Canvas, perhaps, managed to express the whole essence of body art in these two lines. Carala Barendregt persuaded artists from around the world who participated in the global body art festival to work on an album in honor of their colleague Brian Wulf, who suffered from pancreatic cancer. Part of the funds from the book’s sales goes to support the Wolfe family

Body painting

Jane Hillbury studies the relationship between parents and children, friends, lovers and strangers, building and complementing with the help of light schemes and body art itself. In Body Painting, unlike other volumes from the compilation, a large place is given to the erotic side of the phenomenon - at least the body in the book often appears not only as a carrier of the picture, but as a full-fledged element.

Art History: Fine Art Body Painting

DenArt founder of New York's DenArt body art studio, Danny Setiavan, put the famous paintings on the bodies of the models and wrapped all this in the form of an electronic book. 70 images - from "Starry night" to "Constancy of memory" - are forced to absorb the features of the "canvas" and interact with its form (and gaining, and losing), presenting in a completely unusual form. The album "Art History: Fine Art Body Painting", unlike all the others in the collection, you can get for free - the author deliberately laid it out in the public domain.

Mehndi Designs: Traditional Henna Body Art

Recently, henna painting is used to imitate tattoos that are not burdened with meaning, although mehendi was formed precisely as a painting for communication. In fact, according to the characteristics of henna patterns, one can explore the cultural and religious traditions of the peoples of India, Africa and the Middle East. The authors of "Mehndi Designs: Traditional Henna Body Art" took up this: they selected one and a half hundred drawings that were traditionally applied to the hands, feet, foreheads and other parts of the body, and provided them with short comments.