Punk and Neo-Tribal Body Art

Folk Art and Artists Series

by Daniel Wojcik

Punk body adornment, the most notorious and celebrated of recent styles among youth, emerged in the mid-1970s and has persisted in varying forms to the present day. This book illustrates the confrontational aesthetic of punk style, and examines in detail the symbolic meanings and subversive aspects of punk body art. Like members of previous subcultures, denizens of the punk subculture have created a coherent and elaborate system of adornment calculated to horrify the general public. An aesthetic of shock, negation, and cultural pessimism is revealed not only through adornment, but through music, art, dance, fanzines, and dramatizations of violence. The symbolic inversions, ritual pollutions, and carnivalesque antics of the punk movement violate the conventions of daily life. The anti- commercial, do-it-yourself ethos of punks, with their emphasis on parody and gender confusion and an interest in the exotic and forbidden, further challenge dominant cultural values and ideologies.
Along with a history of punk, PUNK AND NEO-TRIBAL BODY ART surveys the distinctive styles that have been influenced by punk ethos and aesthetic (including grunge, Gothic, and riot grrrl), and then examines the commercialization of punk style and how some punks reacted by adopting "neo-tribal" forms of body art inspired by non-Western practices in an effort to create an oppositional identity. Special focus is given to post-punk artist Perry Farrell, former lead singer of Jane's Addiction and founder of the annual Lollapalooza music festivals. Emphasizing individual meanings and personal aesthetics, the book explores the subversive and transformative appeal of tattooing, piercing, and scarification among youth and the ways that these forms of body modification are used to articulate feelings of estrangement, mark memorable events, signify a rite of passage, and individualize the body in an aesthetically pleasing and symbolically powerful manner.

72 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1995