It's ironic, says Kip Fulbeck, that Perseverance, the exhibition he helped create to celebrate the art of the traditional Japanese tattoo, is unlikely to ever be shown in Japan. The stigma surrounding the tattooed body there is still too great.
"If you are tattooed in Japan, you are banned from public baths, gyms and health clubs," says Fulbeck, a photographer and professor of art at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who is himself extensively tattooed in the Japanese style.
![Tattoo by Brian Kaneko. Photo by Kip Fulbeck for the exhibition, <i> Perseverance</i>.](/web/20160924171623im_/http://www.watoday.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/n/m/f/s/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.grjjyt.png/1474700225188.jpg)
"I can't go to a bathhouse – I have to go to one frequented by Yakuza [members of Japanese organised crime syndicates]. Even in a Japanese bathhouse in Los Angeles I had some guys saying bad things about me in Japanese. They were pretty surprised when I spoke in Japanese right back to them."
Fulbeck's revealing portraits of the tattooed body are on display for the first time in Sydney in Perseverance, an exhibition hosted by The Japan Foundation focusing on the work of the world's leading exponents of the Japanese tattoo.
![Tattooing is a vibrant international art form, not just a criminal activity, says Fulbeck. Tattoo by Jeff Gogue.](/web/20160924171623im_/http://www.watoday.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/k/3/o/e/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.grjjyt.png/1474700225188.jpg)
The title of the show is as near as we can get in English to the Japanese concept of gaman, Fulbeck says. "Loosely, it's the idea that, as an artist, you strive and strive and refine and refine, push and push."
That striving is also central to the relationship between the tattoo artist and the client. Full body "suits" take weeks and sometimes months of work to complete. The pain and amounts of money involved are considerable. Extraordinary stamina is required from both parties. "The relationship between the client and the tattooist at this level is sacred," Fulbeck says. "It's also very Zen. When an artist creates a masterpiece on someone's body, they create something that by its very nature is going to die. You may finish your masterpiece and never see it again. Yet you strive. It's yours as an artist, and yet not yours."
The origins of tattooing in Japan are lost in prehistory, though archaeological finds dating back some 12,000 years suggest that men and women wore tattoos on their faces and bodies, as did Paleolithic peoples in many regions.
In writings dated to the period 300BCE to 300CE, tattoo designs were observed and remarked upon by visiting Chinese scholars. Japan's indigenous people, the Ainu, also tattooed themselves for decorative and social purposes.
![Japanese tattoos are designed to be hidden under clothes.](/web/20160924171623im_/http://www.watoday.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/k/3/p/4/image.related.articleLeadNarrow.300x0.grjjyt.png/1474700225188.jpg)
All references to tattooing disappear from the record from the middle of the seventh century CE and don't reappear until the late 1600s, when documents describe courtesans marked with tattoos as a symbol of a promise to a patron. At about the same time, outlaws and guild members (firemen, notably, who wore tattoos for spiritual protection) developed a tradition of tattooing that continues to this day.
In the early 19th century, the ukiyo-e artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi began producing his Suikoden (Water Margin) series depicting outlaw heroes wearing full-body tattoos. These became templates for people wanting to be similarly decorated.
!["The relationship between the client and the tattooist at this level is sacred," says photographer Kip Fulbeck. Tattoo ...](/web/20160924171623im_/http://www.watoday.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/k/3/o/y/image.related.articleLeadNarrow.300x0.grjjyt.png/1474700225188.jpg)
Tattooing was banned at the beginning of the Meiji period (1868-1912) but continued underground in Japanese mafia circles where the intricate tattoos were badges of bravery and clan loyalty.
The practice was made legal again by the post-WWII occupation administration (fuelled in part by the interest American sailors took in the art) but tattooing is still regarded with suspicion in government and business circles. As recently as 2012, the mayor of Osaka started a campaign to rid companies of tattooed employees after complaints that a welfare officer had frightened children by showing off his tattoos.
The stigma surrounding tattoos in Japan is such that people keep their artwork secret when going about their daily business.
"Japanese tattoos are designed to be hidden under clothes," Fulbeck says. "They don't tattoo past the cuff or on the neck. I can even unbutton my shirt and my chest panel does not show."
As a photographer, Fulbeck's personal tattoos made it easier for him to build a bond of trust with tattoo artists and their clients. "I've paid my dues in blood, and that legitimises me in their eyes," he says. "When you are among other people who have paid the same price and live with the same stigma, people feel more comfortable disrobing and revealing their tattoos. If I were not tattooed as heavily as I am, I would have been an outsider."
Even so, not all the photographs came easily. While some subjects were happy to show their skin, others were reticent.
"One girl who came to LA to be photographed was almost impossible to shoot," Fulbeck says. "She was so self conscious about the way she moved and tattoos are meant to move with the body. If someone moves awkwardly, the tattoo looks awkward, too."
Eventually, Fulbeck caught his subject in an unguarded moment. "She was playing with her hair and I caught that. It was perfect. It showed how the design moved with her spine and you look at the bottom of her leg, you can see that the tattoo isn't finished yet. She was trying to hide it!"
Perseverance is part of a collaboration between The Japan Foundation and the Art Gallery of NSW, which is showing the exhibition Yoshitoshi: One Hundred Aspects of the Moon, and a series of events which will explore the links between Japanese woodblock painting – ukiyo-e – and tattoo art. Sydney tattoo artist Kian Forreal, an internationally renowned master of the Japanese style, will give a talk and demonstration as part of the series.
"Part of my job has been translating between the two worlds of tattooing and the art institution," says Fulbeck. "They are worlds that are generally suspicious of each other. But this exhibition has moved through five galleries in the United States before coming to Sydney and I think it's really making people reconsider tattooing as an art form."
Fulbeck's images were taken with a state-of-the-art high-resolution digital camera.
"They are like $60,000 to buy," he says. "I was nervous to walk around with that thing. It's like having a BMW in your hands. A scratch on the lens and it's $20,000."
The hi-resolution allows microscopic detail to be captured. "You can see the pores of the skin," Fulbeck says. "I've had people look at an image of someone's navel and think it's a woodblock print. But that's great. If you think about art from the Edo period – the ukiyo-e, Kabuki theatre, the ceramics – people think, 'that's art'. But so is the tattooing. They were all influenced by the same culture, the same artists. One of the main purposes of this exhibition is to show people that tattooing is a vibrant international art form, not just a criminal activity."
Perseverance: Japanese Tattoo Tradition in a Modern World is showing at The Japan Foundation Gallery, Central Park, Broadway, September 28-November 12; Yoshitoshi: One Hundred Aspects of the Moon, is at the Art Gallery of NSW until November 20.