Today more than ever, we live in a culture of image. The production of fotos, videos and more in general of imagery, has assumed gargantuan proportions. Each one of us produces, views, rates and consumes hundreds of pics every day. At this fearful speed, the value of a single image becomes minimal. Viewing an image is so fast, just the time for a double tap, and already we scroll away, eyes filled with pixels, the mind drowning in habit. The few images piercing our attention, remembered through a screenshot and never seen again, wait for the day we will delete them to spare some space on our drives, forgetting why we liked them in the first place.
Today we don’t know much of the wonder, the amazement and the commotion that a masterpiece by Caravaggio could have induced, a few centuries ago in the eyes of a viewer, admiring the picture for the first time, never to see it again if not in recollection. What do we know of the horror conjured by Bosch’s work in his contemporaries? Or the amazement at Dürer’s technical innovations? Today we got no time for that sort of excellence. We’re squeezing our attention span between holiday pics, nail fashion trends, food pics, cat pics, the occasional militant rant and oh fuck yes, tattoo pics.
Is it maybe to escape this visual anesthesia that we end up tattooing ourselves? Does that pain forever impress a meaning, an unforgettable memory on our skin, or does it only provide the illusion that we can still feel something for art, for beauty? It almost doesn’t seem to make sense: contemporary tattoo culture (or should we say couture?) is itself, in large part, a consequence of the social media age and has lost that rebellious, individualistic meaning it once bore. The tattoo artist has become a media figure not unlike the fashion designer or even worse, an influencer. After a great flourishing of new styles and visions, we can observe today a common trend towards homologation of tattoo production and consumption like never before. The ethics of modern tattooing, open source and availble online for everyone to grab, does not enforce refinement and originality but rather repetition and simplification, qualities so very dear to the algorithm and to the masses.
What today goes for creativity, is bound to the principles of speed and simplicity, while dedication, patience, technique and hard work become ever less encouraged. Style is reduced to the autistic excercise of few simple lines, in order to properly fit the small size of our touchscreens. Research is heavy, tired, almost void. Better is to just satisfy that need for approval, for appreciation and security. The same old need which grips and plagues our self-image, as busy as we already are conforming our own bodies to a photogenic, holliwoodian media-standard.
Das.Kabinett wants to give voice to those bodies, let them scream against this oppression through unique designs, carefully tailored to strengthen and exalt their shapes, to show their beauty, to celebrate differences and analogies.
TORSO is our first step on this long path.
Like an initiation rite, we have gathered in a dark place, hands tied, faces hidden, muzzled and blindfolded, to summon the true forms of our bodies and make them appear on the surface. In the dusk we have glimpsed the phantoms of flesh and we have listened their wail, to grasp their desires, their regrets, their nightmares. Whith shaking hands we have traced those visions.
We hope you enjoy them
Gods
These lovecraftian entities, designed by Maldenti, incarnate ctonic forces, something hideous and dreadful but somehow compelling and seductive. The mindless, ravenous hunger of the emptiness within. The blind instinct for a hollow, endless breeding. The predatory, cannibalistic sexual appetite. They are the embodiment of self-destructive principles, avatars of entropy and their howling laughter echoes from the depths of our guts into the astral void.
Azathoth Shub-Niggurrath Cthulhu
Obsessions
Nicola Fucili’s introspective work, drags deep, dangerous thoughts from the roots of conciousness up to the surface. These demons, born from the clash between rationality and emotions, in a momentary balance between the outside world and the internal abyss, witness with hatred the end of mankind and wait in the shadow to become it’s ultimate incarnation.
I II III
Survivors
Xandthedeath’s Survivors are dirty, ragged and tired. They have endured the trials of Love, Violence and Death, and they carry with pride the scars they have gained. Defeat has not broken them down. They represent human virtues, rebellious and undisciplined, unlike the values of classic heroism. They are Antiheroes, like us, like you and I.
Love Death Violence