"Body art, practiced across the world cultures and throughout history, is the most intimate art form, linking the self, the senses, and the social and political. In recent years, it has proliferated in an unprecedented way, borrowing motifs and practices from many different traditions. Explore their role in expressing personal and cultural identity; their longstanding associations with ritual, theatricality, criminality and beauty; and their recent...

The essays collected here document the extraordinary, intertwined histories of processes of cultural exchange and Pacific tattoo practices. Art historians, anthropologists, and scholars of Oceania provide a transcultural history of tattooing in and beyond the Pacific.

Masks and figural sculptures are the most familiar examples of the visual culture of Oceania, yet they provide only a glimpse of the fascinating art of this expansive and diverse region. The artisans of the Pacific Islands have produced objects ranging from stained and beaten fabric, rock engravings, and woven containers to tattooed and painted bodies, drawings on sand and paper, and contemporary installation art. This sweeping survey looks at the...