tarot
Tattooed
Multi-cultural tattooed imagery weaving global symbols into complex card narratives.
by Pietro Alligo, Cristiano Spadoni · 2006
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The Canon's read
Tarot Canon's own assessment, written for this catalog.
Pietro Alligo, Lo Scarabeo's own co-founder, made the Tattooed Tarot with Cristiano Spadoni, and the archive reviewer's honest first response, having to set it aside because there was so much to take in, is the deck working as designed: symbols from the multicultural world layered non-sequentially across every card, the body of each figure carrying its meanings as ink. The tattoo conceit is structural, not decorative; meaning written on skin is the deck's whole theory of symbolism.
Dense decks divide readers by appetite for excavation, and this one rewards the archaeologically patient: each card is a site, its symbols accumulating readings the way a tattooed life accumulates commitments. Alligo's publisher-founder authorship gives it house-flagship polish. It suits symbol-hunters who like their cards inexhaustible, tattoo-culture readers beyond the flash aesthetic the Bonefire serves, multicultural-symbolism students, and Lo Scarabeo completists. Readers who want one meaning per card should keep walking; here every figure is a library with a pulse.
From the archive
An excerpt from a review at the Aeclectic Tarot archive, in the original reviewer's voice.
I didnt know what to make of this deck when I first got it. I had to leave it alone for a while, as there is so much to take in. Symbols from our multi-cultural world abound, but non-sequentially -...
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