Source: KimBlog – February 9, 2009; Article by Susan Carter Flynn
Missed opportunity of the month: It’s not often that squeamishness keeps me away from performance art, but I couldn’t bring myself to attend Jason Fitzpatrick’s Bite and Burn, Encore, at MSVU Art Gallery (I blame it on a near-fainting episode when I was in high school, watching a boyfriend get tattooed). Fitzpatrick had a piece tattooed down the centre of his back by a professional tattooist in front of an on-looking crowd. This is the fourth time he’s done the performance and the work is cleverly set up like a music “tour,” where videos of previous shows play in the gallery. A local noise-metal band performed as well.
Fitzpatrick’s work is a not to 1970s body modification performances and viewer spectacle (prior to his Halifax performance, he researched the 1970 NSCAD Lithography Workshop, including “body art prints made by Joyce Wieland and Vito Acconci”) and I was bit surprised by the level of shock and disbelief from people I spoke to about this performance. Considering almost every Dalhousie undergrad has a butterfly on their ankle and the local tattoo festivals are extremely poplar events, perhaps getting ink in an art gallery, or as theatre, is the remaining taboo.