Op het lijf Geschreven
This summer Noordkaap has tranformed the Dordrecht Museum into a tattoo studio. Four participants will leave the museum as private custodians of artworks from the museums collection. Wearing them on their bodies and taking them with them into their daily lives.
Curator Moniek Peters of the Museum invited Noordkaap to develop a concept translating the phenomenon of Tableau Vivant into a contemporary version. For this project Jan Kryszons took several central figures out of paintings and redesigned them into tattoos. The selection consists of works by Ary Scheffer, Floris Verster, Otto Dicke, Karel Appel, Piet Ouborg and Albert Cuyp.
At the moment the selection of the four tattooees can be found during the exhibition period in Museum.
The tattoo as Tableau Vivant
The tattoos attached represent contemporary tableaux vivants. Tableaux vivants normally are scenes from paintings and sculptures reenacted in theatrical performances by living persons. This phenomenon emerged in 18th century and played both an entertaining and an educational role. The body modification by a tattoo has a long tradition in many cultures, but in the 20th and 21st century it has also become a fashion trend. The tattoo is usually a symbol for a personal history, as a sign of belonging to a particular subculture or as a metaphor for a metaphysical belief. The tattoo as Tableau Vivant establishes a link between these two different types of historical cultural events.
The medium of tattoo in this project is, like the Tableau Vivant, a copy in the context of the painting and reproduces it in a new form. Although the figures of the tattoos are disconnected from the background of the painting they still retain their iconographic significance. They will leave the museum environment on the skin of its wearer to be exposed to a new reality.
Tussenstop
Op het Lijf Geschreven is one of the Tussenstops of the Dordrecht Museum; a series of exhibitions and projects in order for the museum to remain visible during the renovation of the new building. Until the 12th of September Dordrechts Museum is open on the Nieuwe Haven 26 for visits.
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