An Investigation of " Tattoo" as an Art in the Contemporary Culture and Society

Body painting has been practiced in the wide variety of cultures which includes Tattooing, Marking, and Ink Painting. In this study, we have explored whether tattoos should be counted as art and if they should, their aesthetic characteristics have been extracted based on the Franz Boas analytical method in anthropology of art.
In this study, we attempted to investigate two issues about tattooing: 1) How the common aesthetic characteristics in art theories could be understood in tattoo as an artwork, And 2) According to the fact that, in addition to the aesthetic features, tattoo is also associated with social and cultural dependencies, we sociologically attempted to look for the tattoo’s functions in the contemporary social and cultural structures. Furthermore, considering the similar features of tattooing art in the world, the cultural style of this art has been studied in our society. According to the observations in this study, tattoo not only has aesthetic value in a cultural context, but also has symbolic meaning which influences and is influenced by individual and social leaning.