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    Permanence: Tattoo Portraits by Kip Fulbeck
    Permanence: Tattoo Portraits by Kip Fulbeck
    Permanence: Tattoo Portraits by Kip Fulbeck
    Ebook316 pages48 minutes

    Permanence: Tattoo Portraits by Kip Fulbeck

    By Kip Fulbeck, Horitaka and Takahiro Kitamura

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    Once a fringe phenomenon, tattooing is now a full-blown cultural fact. More than 40 million people in the U.S. alone have tattoos, all with unique stories about why they chose to indelibly mark their bodies. Permanence combines photographic tattoo portraits with these stories, told in the subjects' own words and handwriting. Kip Fulbeck brings together young and old of all races, religions, and political persuasions—from celebrities to suburban moms to Hells Angels. Including interviews with celebrity tattooers Kat Von D and Oliver Peck (Miami Ink), hardcore legend Evan Seinfeld, and some regular folks, Permanence is an entertaining and enlightening portrait of the tattooed population today.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherChronicle Books Digital
    Release dateMay 7, 2013
    ISBN9780811875813
    Permanence: Tattoo Portraits by Kip Fulbeck
    Author

    Kip Fulbeck

    Extensively tattooed artist, filmmaker, and professor Kip Fulbeck is the author of Part Asian, 100% Hapa.

    Read more from Kip Fulbeck

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    Reviews for Permanence

    4/5

    14 ratings3 reviews

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    • 5/5
      This is, essentially, a book about people with tattoos. It's not about the tattoos themselves, although they are pictured, but more about the stories and lives of the person with said tattoos.Each opening has a brief note or story on one page and a photo of the person/persons tattoos on the other. Interspersed are interviews with various related parties such as Evan Seinfeld, Oliver Peck, Kat Von D.I found the stories behind the older folks tattoos the most interesting, but some of the other folks certainly are too.In closing, if you are wanting to purchase a book to get tattoo ideas, this is not the book for you.
    • 4/5
      Kip Fulbeck is a professor of art at the University of California, and judging by the jacket photo, has a number of elaborate tattoos. In Permanence, he investigates the personal narratives behind a number of tattoos ranging from the simple to the incredibly elaborate. His photographs accompany a handwritten description from each person photographed. Some of those posing are famous: Slash (Guns N Roses), Comedian Margaret Cho, Paul Stanley (Kiss) and others. The non-famous include holocaust survivors, marine veterans, and a few full-body tatted individuals. Perhaps most interesting to me-- someone who will never get a tattoo-- is to read the thoughts of those who have tattoos regarding the way they are perceived by those who don't have a tattoo, and how that has changed over the past few decades. Some of the photographs, and to a lesser extent a few of the handwritten notes, are a bit revealing or shocking for a high school audience (I ordered this for a high school library without the option to preview first). One fully tattooed man advises trying LSD and dropping out of school; some of the tattoo photos will undoubtedly raise a few conservative eyebrows. But that's sort of the point. Most who would raise their eyebrows at this likely wouldn't be getting a tattoo in the first place; those with many tattoos would likely find most of the tattoos basic and undaring. The book is an exploration of the WHY by an educated scholar doing academic research: why permanently ink something into your flesh?There are no photos of private parts-- those are all covered in one way or another. The book will certainly appeal to a specific but growing audience; even someone like myself who can't understand why anyone would ever tattoo themselves can appreciate much of the art presented here. The poignant stories of Holocaust survivors and the young Japanese American who tattooed his father's internment camp number when he was in the concentration camps in America make the book worth reading on its own.
    • 3/5
      Things that I liked about this book: the way each person writes up their own tattoo story, the diversity in age, race, and gender of subjects, the different handwriting styles, the pictures.

      Things I could have done without: The constant condescension toward people getting tattoos that popped up in each tattoo artist’s interview as well as the foreword. We get it. You’ve been into tattoos and tattooing since you could walk. That’s awesome. But people who just decided to get a tattoo because their friend did and they think it’s cool? They’re not stupid. And you don’t need to talk down to your readers who maybe don’t have tattoos. It’s cool that they’re all so passionate about their work and their ink, but the incessant tone of superiority really grates.

    Book preview

    Permanence - Kip Fulbeck

    California

    Introduction

    When I teach my college art seminars, I start the first class by asking each student to tell the group something unique about themselves—or, as I put it, something nontransferable. What I’m looking for is a random fact, a salient feature, an off-the-wall quirk that separates them from the Xeroxed pack of names, majors, and ID numbers blurring my roll sheet each year. I’m looking for something that makes them them. Part of this is an exercise in thinking for themselves and part of it is a gimmick for me to help keep their names fresh for the next ten weeks until I can Ctrl+Alt+Delete them and start over. Since we already spend our lives individualizing ourselves, the task should be simple. We all customize our behavior and appearance every day—our dress, our gait, our vernaculars, our possessions, even our tastes. The exercise starts and we go around the room, giving each person a turn. I don’t know any of you, I say, "so give me something that makes you stand out. Tell me something that’s

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