Exhibits with edge
Tattoo artists “Doc” Don Lucas, left, and Adam Montegut opened the New Orleans Tattoo Museum & Studio in March. (Photo by Cheryl Gerber)
Steeped in a culture where history is zealously preserved and the strange isn"t shied away from, New Orleans is home to museums where oddities are revered and the once taboo is now celebrated. Here, an artifact can be defined as skin-deep art forever rendered in ink or can be found in the glass jars of an apothecary cabinet of curiosities.
New Orleans Tattoo Museum & Studio
New Orleans is home to museums where oddities are revered and the once taboo is now celebrated.
The art of tattooing has exponentially grown since local pioneer George Pinell opened his Canal Street parlor in the 1920s. Paying homage to early innovators like Pinell, tattoo artists “Doc” Don Lucas and Adam Montegut opened the 2,000-square-foot museum in March.
The opening exhibit called “Folklore & Flash” is derived from Lucas" personal collection of photographs and memorabilia, introducing guests to the early tools and traditions of electric tattooing.
The museum displays pigment bottles, aged tattoo guns and photographs of illustrated sideshow performers.
The site also offers gallery space for visiting artists and features a tattoo studio for resident artists Lucas, Montegut and Rachel Ulm.
Located in the Creole-American townhouse of Louis J. Dufilho Jr. (the nation"s first licensed pharmacist), this museum presents devices used in early medicine and in local voodoo practices.
Exhibits like the re-created 19th century physician"s study and the Rosenthal Spectacle Collection educate visitors on the bizarre development of health care in Louisiana.
The 1860 hand-carved rosewood cabinets are stocked with leech jars, homeopathic remedies, nearly 200-year-old dental instruments, daily journals and voodoo concoctions (like a “love drawing powder” once sold under the counter).
In March, the New Orleans branch of the infamous West Coast mortality-themed museum opened in the French Quarter.
Founded by J. D. Healy and Cathee Schultz, the grotesque gallery promotes the same mission as the Hollywood, California, location but with Southern gothic flair and three times the site space.
Not for the faint of heart, the museum promotes “dead-ucation” with exhibits featuring antique mortician tools, crime scene photos and letters from notorious serial killers.
