Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art (Venue Partner)
756 N Milwaukee Ave
312.243.9088
This event has passed.
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Jack Cripe, Tattooed Wonder, c. 1950, Collection of Cheri Eisenberg
- When
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Sep 11, 2009 – Jan 9, 2010
Tuesdays–Wednesdays (11am–5pm)
Thursdays (11am–7:30pm)
Fridays–Saturdays (11am–5pm)
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- Price
- Links
“Mainstream culture has absorbed tattoos to the point where your buttoned-up boss probably has an arm ringed in barbed wire by now. It wasn't always like this. Name aside, Intuit's celebration of old-school ink, Freaks & Flash, may not be particularly edgy — it's filled with framed sheets of artists' design drawings — but it does hint at tattooing's genesis in a swaggering shore-leave subculture. Spanning the 1920s to the '70s, the exhibit includes stylistic torchbearers like Sailor Jerry plus numerous Midwesterners. Female artists occasionally joined the boys' club, but mostly women were an object for the eye: a symbol of desire on a muscled bicep, or — as in the hand-painted banners here — a tattooed, sideshow wonder.”
Karsten Lund, Flavorpill
Freaks & Flash will explore the roots of modern Western tattooing with a selection of tattoo flash (the design drawings for tattoos) hanging alongside circus banners featuring tattooed performers. The works displayed reflect both Midwestern and international perspectives. Co-curated by Anna Friedman Herlihy and Jan Petry.
