Tag Archives: FABAIC

Why Body Paint? — 1: Collaboration — Painting the Mangbetu Queen

From 1910, Queen Mutubani of the Mangbetu people being body painted by serving girls — it's good to be the Queen.

By Christopher Agostino

One of the more remarkable photographs of the cultural use of body art is the image from 1910 of a Mangbetu Queen in the book Body Decoration (see Books page for bibliography). As the queen stands in a regal pose she is being painted by several servants. I was reminded of this image last week during the bodypainting preparation for a video shoot. We had 4 dancers to paint. I was the primary bodypainter and there were two makeup artists doing the hair and eye makeup — as they finished with that they would help me paint the bodies. Towards the end all 3 of us were painting the 4th dancer simultaneously, and she remarked about what it felt like to be the center of that much attention. So I told her she should feel like a queen, a Mangbetu Queen.

Bodypainting is an intrinsically collaborative art. The primary collaboration is between the artist and the model, but it isn’t the only one, and that is not the collaboration I am addressing here, for there are often more people in the bodypainting room: assistants, photographers, multiple models to be painted — and spectators. The theatrical and presentational nature of bodypainting often means there is a crowd present watching the process. The ephemeral nature of the art compels us to maximize the amount of time people have to see our work. Whereas canvas painters work mostly alone in studios, we bodypainters make a spectator sport of it.

The Body Painting room for Bodies Alive!

A formative experience for most novice bodypainters is the first time they are at a convention, festival, performance or competition working in a room full of artists painting models. I’d say that this experience, more than any other, is the reason for the growing number of bodypainters in the U.S. — the fun they had, and the inspiration gained, from the sense of camaraderie in a room full of bodypainters drives them to keep doing it. Speaking personally, I find the bodypainting room much more exciting than the painted body fashion show or competition that follows, and especially when the painting being done in that room is all towards a unified purpose. Jam sessions are fun, and I understand the commercial necessities that make so many bodypainting events into competitions, but the ultimate for me is when the painters are all working in collaboration to achieve a collective vision, such as painting those 4 dancers for the video shoot, or the bodypainting room for the Bodies Alive! show at FABAIC 2008  http://www.fabaic.com/  , which I am very proud to have been a part of. We had about 30 primary painters plus many more additional volunteers working collaboratively — for numerous participants it was the first time they had helped to paint a full body, and I’m sure that experience has been a source of confidence as they have continued bodypainting.

In preparation for the stick fighting competitions, Surma men cover their skin with chalk mixed with water and then make line patterns through the chalk with their fingers

Painting bodies is more like performing music than like a studio art. It is a performance art, you certainly need the audience. I think you also want the fun of being part of a band, you don’t paint a body all alone — at the very least it is you plus the model. In its traditional functions, body painting is a social act, a shared community activity. For one thing, you can’t paint your full body yourself, and I believe that in traditional cultural uses (such as the Surma men painting each other in preparation for the ceremonial stick fights, or the Surma women painting together by a river bank for their part of the festivities) the participants experience the time spent painting each other in a unifying, celebratory way — in much the same way bodypainters enjoy the communal spirit of all painting together in a room at a convention. Any time you see an example of tribal or traditional body art, with full bodypainting or intricate designs on the back or the limbs, it is created communally, with the help of another person, and usually a reciprocal social act, as I paint your back and you paint mine.

Women of the Surma gathered to paint each other with colored earths and ochres.

Getting back to the Mangbetu, I have notes in an old journal about seeing an exhibit called “African Reflections: Art from Northeastern Zaire” in 1990 at the American Museum of Natural History www.amnh.org/  of objects from the Mangbetu culture in the Congo region of Africa from around the time of that photo of the Queen being painted. What has stuck with me through the years since that exhibit is that every object — from household utensils like spoons, to clothing, house poles, drinking vessels — every object was a work of art. Including the people, for the exhibit said they would paint each other in intricate and original patterns with dyes made from the gardenia plant that would last a few days, and then be re-painted in new and unique designs. The exhibit displayed a collaborative, ongoing social act to create a world of art.

Again I am reminded of the practice and function of making live music, particularly in a traditional setting, it’s an experience we visual artists don’t get to have in our process much, except perhaps when doing something like bodypainting, in which the process is intrinsically collaborative and the work of art is alive.

Another Mangbetu bodypainting example, from 1937.

From the African Reflections exhibit I saw in 1990, a figure with body art lines — I have a sketch of this figure in my old notebook and found this image searching the American Museum of Natural History web site.

Not to put too fine a point on the communal, egalitarian nature of tribal arts, the text accompanying this image of a Mangbetu male from "Body Decorations" states "the elaborate painting indicated the social superiority of the Mangbetu elite" — so the body art contained social information as it did in most cultures.

An example from the Amazon Txukahamae culture of communal body painting

The Odd Ball in 2009 was another very fun body painting room — see the link to that page below

See my fine art bodypainting at  https://thestorybehindthefaces.com/body-painting/  Christopher Agostino

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Li Chi Slays the Dragon — LIVE at PIFA — storytelling

Li Chi Slays the Dragon — a Transformation Tale by Christopher Agostino, from an ancient legend of China

One of my favorite tales, Li Chi Slays the Dragon, from a performance on April 30, 2011 at the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts street fair, presented by The Kimmel Center. It was a truly beautiful day, the first one after some rainy ones, so the street was packed and a crowd formed instantly as I started up. I painted a couple of people to demonstrate the transformation story-faces concept and to focus the crowd, and then picked a volunteer and launched right in.

The tale of the brave maiden Li Chi who volunteers to be sacrificed to the dragon in order to kill it is an especially fun one to tell. My source is a brief folktale nearly 2,000 years old, written by Gan Bao (or Kan Pao), found in the book “Chinese Fairy Tales & Fantasies” edited by Moss Roberts, 1979, Pantheon Books. Like most of the stories I perform, it has been gradually re-written through the course of presenting it to modern audiences — though the heroine Li Chi’s chiding of the previous girls sent to the dragon for not taking care of him themselves, that comes right from the original version. 2,000 year old advice: take care of business or you might get eaten.

The source image for my depiction of Li Chi, the female hero from a Peking Opera production

Hero Tales like this are the original motivational speeches, encouraging all of us to take care of business, and this is why they survive (in addition to the pure fun of telling them). I made Li Chi Slays the Dragon a centerpiece of a special show I designed this summer about why we tell stories, for a series of performances at libraries to fit the Summer Reading Club theme of “One World, Many Stories”. Kids need to hear Hero Tales, to know they can defeat a dragon if need be even though they are kids. I especially like to share tales like this one in which the hero is young, or small, or misfit, with no superpowers, fairy godmothers or magic swords (just the faithful family dog.)

Sketch for Li Chi and her faithful dog as a bodypainting design for the back of the performer portraying Li Chi in the Bodies Alive! production.

The tale and the telling of it has also been a source of inspiration for face and body painting designs exploring the Chinese Opera imagery of the female hero and of dragons, particularly as I expanded the visuals from one face to full bodypaintings on a group of performers to create the mountains and the full dragon as well as several changing images of Li Chi for the Bodies Alive! show at the Face and Body Art International Convention in 2008. http://www.fabaic.com/

See my “Shows” page with the tab at the top of the post for more information on my Transformation — Storytelling shows

In addition to my performing at PIFA, we also had a team of facepainters there. To see the faces:  https://thestorybehindthefaces.com/2011/05/03/facepainting-event-modern-art-faces-in-philly-pt-1-britt/

and https://thestorybehindthefaces.com/2011/05/04/facepainting-event-modern-art-faces-in-philly-pt-2/

to learn about that event: http://www.kimmelcenter.org/events/pifastreetfair.php

Li Chi's figure as a face design

From Bodies Alive!, with Li Chi, as a painted hand-puppet, approaching the temple on the top of the mountain

Prior to the Bodies Alive! production I worked out some of the designs and did color tests on people's faces at our events. I've always preferred doing such explorations for new designs on actual faces and bodies at our regular events, as well as sketching them out in advance.

One of the sources of inspiration for the dragon face. This image came from a book brought back from China by one of our artists, with dozens and dozens of face designs from the Chinese Opera.

The cast of the Bodies Alive! full body production, from 2008 at the Face and Body Art International Convention in Orlando.

http://www.agostinoarts.com

To learn more about Transformations Storytelling Shows see: https://thestorybehindthefaces.com/storytelling-show/

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Mike Tyson’s Tattoo: what the…?

Mike Tyson’s tattoo

By Christopher Agostino 6/9/2012

First off, I invite you to add your own comments to this one, as I am sure there are aspects to this that I am missing, and I have as many questions as opinions here. So, woo-hoo!, Hangover 2 gets to open because a judge rules that even though Victor Witmill does own the copyright to the tattoo design he famously put on Mike Tyson that was then imitated in the film, the financial damage of keeping the film closed would effect too many people to be justified. I’d only followed this with amused interest until I heard an “On the Media” report about the possible ramifications of tattoo copyright — and now I have some questions. (On The Media: This Week “Can you Copyright the Human Body?)

Is it the norm for a tattoo artist to retain the rights to a design they put on someone else’s skin? Or did it only apply in this case because Tyson is a celebrity and the tattoo artist was seizing an opportunity? What a weird idea that somebody else might own something on your skin. (In a related opinion of mine, I think that the models we paint at conventions should be allowed to get copies of all the photographs taken of them…the person on whom the bodyart is created is as intrinsic to the result as the art is)

Secondly, how does a non-Maori tattoo artist get to claim intellectual property rites over an obviously traditionally styled design? When Tyson first appeared with this thing around his eye I remember how he talked about it’s traditional origins and significance, so what about it makes it something that some tattoo artist can claim as original? I mean, really?  (In doing a web search for a common use eligible image of the tattoo I did come across an article from Techdirt about an indignant Maori response to this claim — see the quoted portion below)

However, the larger point I want to make, is what’s up with Tyson’s tattoo in the first place?

From the first I saw it and heard his comments about it, I had to ask: what the….? He talked real big about it being the sign of the warrior and all that, and for a few years afterwards I had all sorts of guys asking me to give them a Tyson Warrior Tattoo. But, what the….?

From Robley’s book: photograph from the 1890’s of a “well chiseled” Maori tattoo design

I’m no expert, just a fascinated artist, but everything I’ve read abut Maori tattoo traditions  (“moko”) say that warriors tattooed their whole face, not just some little bit around the eye, and that a big part of the process is enduring the months of painful work required for the full face. I didn’t go back just now to fact-check this little bit but I distinctly remember reading that only priests wore partial tattoos by the eye. Not only did the warriors tattoo the full face, but the designs were incised so deep that the skin became ridged and grooved like a sculpture. In H. G. Robley’s book, Maori Tattooing, first published in 1896 when the tradition was still in general practice, there is not a single example of a man’s face without extensive tattooing.

On the final night at the 2011 Face And Body Art International Convention (FABAIC), sitting in the outdoor courtyard after the party, I met a gentlemen who was extensively tattooed. He was a soldier, recently back from service, and he was fascinated by the painted people walking through the hotel. We talked about what I did, but then I got him to tell me about his tattoos. The first two he showed me were Cherokee inspired designs on his shoulders. Then he showed me others on his arms and legs, each one marking a place he had been in the service — some, it seemed, for lessons learned and experiences to be cherished (like a samurai inspired mark down the back of his neck from time in Japan) and some for more painful memories. We talked for a while and at one point he asked me if I had any Native American blood in me, and I said no, but that I knew that he was Cherokee, for I had learned from our talk that he wouldn’t wear a mark unless he’d earned it.

Robley’s sketch from the 1890s

From Techdirt:

An illustration from 1800, from Karl Gröning’s book “Body Decoration”

Maori Angry About Mike Tyson’s Tattoo Artist Claiming To Own Maori …

Professor Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, author of Mau Moko: The World of Maori Tattoo, described Mr Whitmill’s claims of ownership as insufferable arrogance. “It is astounding that a Pakeha tattooist who inscribes an African American’s flesh with what he considers to be a Maori design has the gall to claim that design as his intellectual property,” she said. “The tattooist has never consulted with Maori, has never had experience of Maori and originally and obviously stole the design that he put on Tyson…. The tattooist has an incredible arrogance to assume he has the intellectual right to claim the design form of an indigenous culture that is not his.”

I looked it up, from Wikipedia: Pākehā is a Māori term for New Zealanders who are not of Māori blood lines

There are a lot of intersting little articles about this whole issue, and the legal ramifications of tattoo copyright, here’s one: Copyright Yo Face!. Copyfight: the politics of IP

http://www.agostinoarts.com

Check out my Body Painting Page https://thestorybehindthefaces.com/body-painting/

follow me for the face of the day:  https://twitter.com/#!/storyfaces

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