How can you possibly report on the latest thing in the art of tattoo when you know that in the blink of an eye what is the here and now on the printed page will have become past tense.
We have often pondered this problem and have come to the conclusion that it is simply not possible to give the news, the latest developments, in the pages of a magazine. Not to mention utterly pointless. It would be like becoming a clone of the web, yearning for an infinite form but without the actual space to spread out.
On the basis of this logic we have chosen what we deem the most appropriate format for the goal we have set ourselves with Tattoo Life. In order that it remain a point of reference for those in search of the very best in the art of tattoo (and we use the word art advisedly), Tattoo Life is guided by a term which better than any other expresses our intention: selection.
Not quantity but quality in every thing, not a slideshow of images, but for each artist a selection of those pieces I deem best represent what that artist, selected among the five and five only that we present in each issue, does in their style. This, in my opinion, is what the voice of a magazine needs to be nowadays: not shouting but quietly providing ideas, inspiration and guidance in the study and search for the best.
And so just a few artists to give space to, to give voice to in the interviews which must be proper in-depth investigations and not a mere caption underneath the pictures.
There is a visual morass we are accustomed to wading through in every aspect of our lives, a fast food which is everywhere and has also flooded the art of tattoo, a continuous overflow which leaves no time to stop and look, observe and study. Thus on Instagram one image covers and replaces another continuously, in three seconds, and those images remain in the ether, as if forever new. Those posted as the latest become a number x in an infinite and neverending series of latests.
Therefore, the new format Tattoo Life adopts in this issue precisely explains our intention: to produce culture in the art of tattoo, educate and guide. Not to provide quantity but quality, give a voice to the authors of those pieces, understand their choices, their creative development and thus understand how certain pieces come to be.
It means a more detailed approach, also thanks to the vision of someone who has been on the scene for thirty years, who has acquired their knowledge from this experience. We want to give you directions so that you yourselves can choose whether or not to go down a certain path, using the coordinates provided by the tattooists in their own words.
We believe that it is often the white, the blank space, on paper as on skin, which plays such a fundamental role in the formation of the whole.
