La Parola di Dio iscritta sulla pelle nella prassi artistica post-concettuale di Douglas Gordon

Abstract

The paper offers an analysis of how tattoos, although they only very recently established a niche of their own in contemporary art, became an important medium of religious art, particularly for Christianity. A central character is identified in Scottish artist Douglas Gordon, a celebrity of todays art world, who addressed the relationship with the Word of God already in his early works. Indeed, Gordon's tattoos are textual and inscribe the body with words. Penance and faith, possession and salvation are at the center of his creativity and find tattoos to be a convenient vehicle to confer a newly rediscovered sacred dimension to the body. In Gordons works the inscription acquires a religious dimension that allows the expression of dogmas and mystic truths, which collide among different Christian confessions. The artist's personal religious life, as well as the divisions among churches in his homeland, steer him towards a deep reflection on sin and guilt, such as in the 1997 work Tattoo (for reflection): the word ∗guilty" is tattooed backwards behind the shoulder, in such a way that it remains invisible to the tattooed person, although present as in the Calvinist experience of predestination meant as an indelible mark. With similar works Gordon brought Christian topics back into todays art world, turning tattoos into a bridge towards religious art.