Body art - Definition and Overview

Body art is art made on, or consisting of, the human body. The commonest forms of body art are tattoos and body piercings, but also includes scarring, shaping, and body painting.

More extreme body art can involve mutilation, or in some way pushing the body to its limits. One of Marina Abramovic's works, for example, consisted of her dancing until she collapsed from exhaustion, while one of Dennis Oppenheim's better known works saw him lying in the sunlight with a book on his chest until the skin not covered by the book was badly sunburned. It can even consist of preserved bodies arranged and dissected in an artistic fashion, as in the case of the plastinated bodies used in the travelling Body Worlds exhibit.

External links

• The science and art of tattoos and tattooing (http://www.tattoology.net)
• Australian Museum's Body Art section (http://www.amonline.net.au/bodyart/)
• American Museum of Natural History's Body Art section (http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/bodyart/)
• Body Modification Ezine (http://www.bmezine.com/)
• Body-Art.net (http://www.body-art.net/)
• The Painted Body (http://www.thepaintedbody.com/) The Art of Kevin C Mason & Joel P Hernandez
• Earth Henna Body Painting (http://www.earthhenna.com/)