Love=Love is a series of collages that were created using pieces of over 60 store bought puzzles. Although puzzle pieces are unique, and can only fit into one place within a puzzle, they are sometimes interchangeable within a brand. These puzzles were cut using the same die, but depict unrelated images. Using only the flowers and skies from each of the puzzles, I created a series of entirely new compositions by recombining the puzzle pieces. These spectacular, fantastical and surreal landscapes sit in direct contrast to the banal and bucolic images of the original puzzles. (artist statement)
I was asked recently by a queer artist who’s thinking of getting this tattoo on their body what the reference was for the caption. After all, if they’re going to make a commitment to it, they want to be sure that it really was a tattoo popular with gay criminals. At least allegedly.
It’s the practice on Nemfrog to link back to the source, in this case the title is bolded and underlined, which is the tipoff. (Currently, I skip a line and write the name of the site where it comes from, which is a link back to the page where an image can be found.)
The tattoo originates in a book of illustrations related to the work of an often cited Italian criminologist named César Lombroso. The book was published in Rome and written in French. The link on the post goes to Plate XVI. If you go there you’ll see the page with six drawings of tattoos which is where the famous tattoo is depicted, but there aren’t any apparent descriptions of where they come from or anything about them. Look carefully and you’ll see the tattoo in the post is labeled with a “3.” That denotes it as figure 3 on a page with six figures.
To find the description you have to turn pages until you’ll get to the section titled “Explication des Planches,” meaning “Explanation of Plates.” The description of Plate XVI says “fig. 2,3,4,5 et 6 – Tatouages fréquents dans les pédérastes.” That translates as “tattoos common among homosexuals.” The word pederast has a different meaning in French than English. It was the equivalent of homosexual.
So there it is. Famed criminologist César Lombroso said the tattoo of two hands clasping a knife dripping blood was popular with gay criminals. That’s my source.
The National Institute for Regional and Spatial Analysis NIRSA defines a ghost estate as a development of ten houses or more in which fifty per cent or less of homes are occupied or completed. In October 2010, according to official estimates, there were 2846 ghost estates and more than 350 000 vacant homes throughout the Republic of Ireland. Ghost estates can be found everywhere, but most of them are located in the rural areas of the northern and western part of the country, in the counties of Cavan, Leitrim, Longford and Roscommon, which are the estates I visited.
These empty shells are eyesores for the locals in these small towns. The crisis is affecting the country – unemployment, debts, budget cuts, flights of capital investments – but it is also shaping its landscape. Bitter memories left by the spectral and temporary nature of the property boom in Ireland, ghost estates are the symbol of the property market’s collapse, a topology of the economic disintegration of the country.
