Cosmogonic Tattoos

Artist Jim Cogswell's "Cosmogonic Tattoos" is an ambitious work of contemporary art created for the windows of the University of Michigan Museum of Art and the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology. Drawing on imagery from both museums, "Cosmogonic Tattoos" liberates museum objects from their cases and pedestals to run wild and transform, dramatizing the complex and tumultuous ways in which art and artifacts go from creation to museum display. This handsome artist book, designed by Franc Nunoo-Quarcoo, contains a full photographic documentation of the installation, as well as the artifacts that inspired it, preliminary studies, and related work, accompanied by artist statement and essays and reactions to the work by artists, scholars and museum professionals.