Newsmax columnist Alexandra York — who loves to rage against anything that doesn’t conform to her delicate (and Western) conception of “art” — raged again in an April 5 column:
The more enticing subject matter, the profundity of philosophically based content, and the brilliance in implementation of craft determine the level of meaningful importance.
Tattoos are far outside being defined as an art form because they cannot exist apart from the body to which they are affixed, they are ornaments of surface without any aesthetically expressed artist-originated-value-laden mental content, and their subject matter is (usually) dictated by paying clients rather than selected by the actual executer of images.
Thus, it follows that applicators of tattoos are not “artists.”
While some people who apply tattoos may possess the basic craft abilities of a genuine artist — drawing for example — they (usually) do not select the subject matter nor the conceptual content (if any) of the images they create, both hallmarks of a fine artist.
Unless the client who pays them for their technical services chooses a tattooist’s own pre-drawn stencil, they almost invariably dictate both subject matter and “meaning” similar to the arrangement of every advertiser who pays a commercial illustrator to create images that accompany products.
One might argue that an accomplished fine artist can be commissioned (paid) by a client to paint or sculpt a portrait image of a particular individual or group of individuals —themselves or others — in which case that artist cannot select the subject because the subject is the person(s) they are depicting in the art.
But their portraits by nature of their demanding artistic creative process are imbued with a vision of their own individual humanity as well.
The portrait subject then becomes a vehicle for the artist’s expression not limited to replicating likeness but also interpreting character or temperament or more. How the portraitist expresses the life energy and spirit of the sitter makes the best works memorable, even revered.
[…]Tattoos fit none of the criteria for being considered “art,” a fact that leads logically to the conclusion that none of the tattoo practitioners fit the definition of “artist.”
In essence tattoo clients are narcissistically advertising images (or sayings) representing personal values or obsessions (and often displaying addictive behavior by sporting multiple and/or overlapping images that completely cover arms, legs, and other body parts).
Ergo, the tattooists applying the images with electrical devices armed with needles that move up and down thousands of times per minute to puncture human skin and deposit droplets of pigment most definitely are not “artists.”
“To each his own” for sure.
But let’s avoid dishonoring genuine fine art by calling things that clearly are not art “Art.”
York offers no real evidence for this — just her opinion. Alexandra York has spoken, and no dissent is permitted.