Interviews with 15 tattoo and body modification artists. Modern
Primitives examines a vivid contemporary enigma: the growing revival of
highly visual (and sometimes shocking) "primitive" body modification
practices - tattooing, multiple piercing, and scarification.
Also added is a new community section, where current practitioners have been invited to have their cards displayed. Modern Primitives
was the first book to investigate not only the "how" but also the "why"
of body modification practices. It reaches far back into history to
multiform cultural traditions to illuminate one of today's most
wide-spread youth culture visual signifiers. Heavily illustrated with
detailed, contemporary photographs, as well as archival anthropological
images and drawings of ancient tattoo traditions, Modern Primitives was ground-zero for today's body-modification trends.