Again, it was a crazy convention. For this new edition of «Le Mondial du Tatouage », Tin-Tin and his team gathered an incredible set of the best artists on the planet, cool concerts, contests and a huge public. The record of entrance for this type of event. 30K tickets, that makes a lot of scribbled skin !
A jury of choice was invited for the contests, composed of Bill Salmon from San Francisco U.S.A, Filip Leu from Sainte-Croix in Switzerland, Luke Atkinson from Stuttgart in Germany and the new comer this year Kari Barba from Long Beach, California U.S.A, the cream of tattooing. Bandwise, we heard the stoner music of « Orange Goblin », as well as « Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats », « Hanchman’s Chair » and the « Sticky Boys ». On stage, Alexandre Devoise, who use to present "le journal du hard" (a porno tv show), "nul par ailleurs" (a french talk show) and now selling vacuum cleaners on teleshopping, animated the convention for these three days. We also ran into the « tattooed man » Pascal Tourain who was, as always, all around the convention entertaining everyone.
Regarding the artists present at the show, the list is quite long. About 300 tattoo artists, from all around the world traveled for this convention. We were able to admire the work of Chris Crooks the english specialist in japanese style, Clint Danroth (Canada), Dansin and his « hot » japanese tattoos (Luxembourg), Ed Perdomo and his superb new-school tattoos (Sweden), Chad Koeplinger who works in the traditional old-school genre (USA), all styles were represented. We were also treated to the work of Ball BKK (thailand), Safwan (Canada), Jee Sayalero (Spain), Guil Zekri (Germany), Aaron Bell (USA), Henning Jorgensen (Denmark), Ichibay (Japan), Jay Marceau (Canada), Kid Kros (Croatia), Kostas Tzikalagias (Greece), Léa Nahon (Belgium), Kurt Wiscombe (Canada), Liorcifer (USA), Lucho Morante (Spain), Matt Difa (England), Mister P (Belgium), Morg Armeni (Italy), Nathan Kostechko (USA), Nick Chaboya (Switzerland), Shawn Barber (USA), Stillian Smokov (Bulgaria), Tomasz TOFI Torfinski (Poland), Veronique Imbo (Canada), Victor Chil (Spain), Vlady (Italy), Volko Merschky (Germany), Horiken (Japan), Ernesto Kalum (Malaysia, Borneo), Jean-Pierre Mottin (Belgium) etc etc etc...
A few french tattooists were also there. In the hallways we came across Joce the Next Pen, Steph. D and Claire of Octopus Tattoo, Dimitri Hk, Alix Ge, Amy Mymouse, Noka, Julien Thibers, Mikael De Poissy, Mike Gantelme and Laura Amar of White Chapel Tattoo, as well as Easy Sacha, Diego Moraes, BBR D’annecy, Fabien Belly Button, Stoo. A superb "Fender" exposition was presented a the event. Tons of artists customized some guitars, transforming them into works of art. There was also some seminars, like the very appreciated conference by Jee Sayalero on Japanese tattooing.
See you next time in the great hall of « La Villette » !! Article by DHK, thanks to Ludo de G-Gen and James C. Translation by James C.
