Black & Grey Tattoo

Our interview with ink doyenne Marisa Kakoulas on her grayscale tattoo magnum opus

Originating on the streets and in prisons, tattooing’s shades-of-gray genre initially often told the stories of tribal affiliations and conquests or were homages to the deceased. Methods of inking spanned readily available tools and homemade machines could be as random as “a guitar string, cassette motor, Bic pen tube and India Ink,” explains Marisa Kakoulas, co-author of the heavyweight book on the subject “Black & …

Google Art Project and MTA.ME

Two new interactive works from the Internet's creative powerhouse

If the big business of art makes you shed a little tear for civilization, the Google Art Project might be for you. Eschewing the practices of increasingly high admission fees (and the dumbed-down blockbuster shows that come with it), the Internet behemoth introduces a platform that transcends both the boundaries of geography and cash flow. While of course this digitized version can’t do what a …

See/Saw

A new book finds a common thread in 5,000 years of Japanese art

A concise book comparing contemporary Japanese art to renowned classics, “See/Saw: Connections Between Japanese Art Then and Now” guides readers through 5,000 years of art by showing how it shares one common trait—”the new is old, or the old is new.” Authors Ivan Vartanian and Kyoko Wada acknowledge that at first their pairings “may be jarring,” but maintain that despite the West’s moderate influence, typically …