What happened at
Kunsten pa Kroppen in 1997
Tattoo Studio - Copenhagen, Denmark

Easter Exhibition

Erik participated in an Easter exhibition in Stavern, Norway, with the Danish sculptor Steffan Herrik.
It was a well attended exhibition! During the one week, we had about 3-4000 visitors! It was packed. Erik did a lot of tattoos at the gallery.

Norrköping Tattoo Convention

Erik & Colin went to the Swedish Tattoo Convention in Norrköping, Sweden, where we exhibited our photos and successfully ran our tattoo booth. It was 3.-4. May 1997. We did some good work.

One of Erik's female customers from Copenhagen entered the competition for Best Back piece - and won first prize!

Back in our Studio in Copenhagen, we were visited by Daemon Rowanchilde & Scott Duncan from Urban Primitives in Toronto Canada. They both did some marvelous work at our little Studio.

We had some great days together.

August 23-24
Exhibition at the Buderup Deserted Church

Invited by a local Art Club, Erik and the sculptor Steffan Herrik mounted an exhibition at a church in the part of Denmark called Jylland.

The church is 900 years old, and not used as a church anymore. But it made a great exhibition place. No electric light, only the sun shining.
A tattoo Studio was set up in the back of the church.

Erik has visited
Ammassalik on the East Coast of Greenland
August 28th to September 16th
to do an exhibition of tattoo history. Both among Inuit and the world in general.

It was a fantastic trip. East Greenland is incredibly beautiful, and Tasiilaq is quite a pearl. The city is exceptionally isolated. There lives about 1700 people, and you can only get there by helicopter. In the autumn, from July to October you can sail there, and about 4 ships comes to the city with provisions. During winter it is possible to get there by dogsled, but the journey will take weeks and months! It is no more that 100 years since the first Europeans came to the district, built the first houses, and founded the city. So history and the old myths lie just below the surface.

The most common way to get to the place, is by helicopter. There are three connections to Iceland each week via the airstrip at Kulusuk - and 15 minutes in helicopter to Tasiilaq.

The museum in Tasiilaq is the former church, a fine little wooden house by the harbour.

Apart from the exhibition, I did a well attended lecture on tattooing, and we set up a Tattoo Studio in a storeroom at the local bookshop/grill bar, etc. It got quite cozy! I was working among sacks of coffee beans, toilet paper, boxes of printer paper, and many other things. Not really normal surroundings for a Tattoo Studio, but it worked well.
I made arrangements with the hospital for sterilizing needles, etc.

The place was called Neriusaaq (The Rainbow). It was managed by Gerda, a fabulous, all round person, and they had almost everything: Bookshop, newspapers, grill bar, sausages, ice-cream, candies, etc.

One of the first persons to be tattooed was the leader of the museum, Ole. Then I also tattooed a lot of people from the city and the district. They got polar bears, whales, seals, and other images from Greenland.

We met some exceptionally lovely and hospitable people.
We also took time to look around the city and the surrounding nature. Anita and I got married at the city hall. We had coffiemik and drum dancing. We went on trips with the local ships. I paddled a kayak, ad took care of a bunch of 10 sledge dogs for a week. We experienced a Piteraq, which is a storm of incredible force. In all it was three weeks, full of experiences.

November 28th to 30th 1997

Kunsten pa Kroppen participated in
The Third International Tattoo Convention in
Malmö, Sweden

This became a great success, as Erik won first prize in the most prestigious of the competitions: Best Overall. That is the tattoo that best fits the body it is on.
Two of Erik's customers entered, and they both won:
Lea won best female, and Thomas won best male.

They can both be seen in this picture

Apart from that, the main attraction at this convention, was Paolo Suluape from Samoa, who demonstrated traditional Samoan tattooing techniques.
And Kunsten pa Kroppen was there to form a counterweight to all the other, more normal tattooists, and all the bikers.