Word: schildkrout
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Dates: during 1999-1999
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...tradition as old as recorded history--probably much older. Ever since our Neolithic ancestors invented art tens of thousands of years ago, humans have been painting, sculpting and otherwise decorating everything in sight. The human body is just the nearest and most intimate canvas. Says anthropologist Enid Schildkrout of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City: "There is no known culture in which people do not paint, pierce, tattoo, reshape or simply adorn their bodies...
...this universal phenomenon is being celebrated in two separate showcases. Last week a cross-cultural exhibition titled "Body Art: Marks of Identity," curated by Schildkrout and devoted to the past 4,000 years of body modification--"bod-mod" to the cognoscenti--opened at the American Museum. At the same time, photographers Carol Beckwith and Angela Fisher, based in London, have published African Ceremonies (Abrams; $150), two magnificent volumes documenting the continent's rapidly vanishing kaleidoscope of tribal rites, many of which involve elaborate body decoration...
...museum show, Schildkrout and her colleagues focus on five types of bod-mod: tattooing, scarring, piercing, painting and shaping. And while some examples may seem bizarre to Western eyes, says Schildkrout, "we want people to realize that everyone, including themselves, performs some form of transformation. We color our hair, wear makeup, put on clothes, have plastic surgery...
...latter is included in the American Museum show, which runs through May, along with photos, paintings and artifacts such as textiles and carvings that replicate body decorations. Schildkrout hopes visitors will come away from the exhibition understanding that "everyone does body art in one form or another. It's just the conventions that change...
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