Synopsis:

Nonfiction. This book is an anthropological inquiry into a contemporary social enigma-the increasingly popular revival of ancient human decoration practices such as symbolic/deeply personal tattooing, multiple piercings, and ritual scarification. "Primitive" actions which rupture conventional confines of behavior & aesthetics are objectively scrutinized. In context of the death of global frontiers, this volume charts the territory of the last remaining underdeveloped source of first-hand experience: the human body.

This is the book which launched “a Revolution” and introduced the world to body piercing and full-body tattoos.

“As the man credited with launching the contemporary tattoo and body-modification movements almost single-handedly, UC Berkeley grad V. Vale has been called a prophet. His 1989 book MODERN PRIMITIVES inspired a generation to ink, pierce, and decoratively scar itself, not to mention branding itself with hot metal and rerouting its genitals.”—Anneli Rufus, East Bay Express

“Modern Primitives is a stunning compilation, so densely packed with strange material that all adds up to something much more than a succession of mere weirdnesses — the human body as its own extreme metaphor, or the body as an extreme metaphor of its own mind. A real terminal document.” – J.G. Ballard

Thank You, Kevin