[Piercing and tattooing: from the body to the master piece]

In recent years, new uses of the body have taken place among youths. Body art has become democratic and reaches more and more heterogeneous groups of customers. Considered for a long time as a primitive attribute, tattooing has come out from the 'underground' for an open display. The many uncertainties of our modernity appear to incline young people to knock around their bodies. From circumcision to piercing and tattooing, all these body writings appear as religious, initiatory or community rituals, more in keeping with a primitive law rather than with an individual revolt.