## Step 2 - Reading

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© Wim Delvoye The man who sold his back to an art dealer By Harry Low BBC World Service 1 February 2017 Tim Steiner has an elaborate tattoo on his back that was designed by a famous artist and sold to a German art collector. When Steiner dies his skin will be framed - until then he spends his life sitting in galleries with his shirt off. "The work of art is on my back, I'm just the guy carrying it around," says the 40-year-old former tattoo parlour manager from Zurich. A decade ago, his then girlfriend met a Belgian artist called Wim Delvoye, who'd become well known for his controversial work tattooing pigs. Delvoye told her he was looking for someone to agree to be a human canvas for a new work and asked if she knew anyone who might be interested. "She called me on the phone, and I said spontaneously, 'I'd like to do that,'" Steiner says. Two years later, after 40 hours of tattooing, the image spread across his entire back - a Madonna crowned by a Mexican-style skull, with yellow rays emanating from her halo. There are swooping swallows, red and blue roses, and at the base of Steiner's back two Chinese-style koi fish, ridden by children, can be seen swimming past lotus flowers. The artist has signed the work on the right hand side. "It's the ultimate art form in my eyes," Steiner says. "Tattooers are incredible artists who've never really been accepted in the contemporary art world. Painting on canvas is one thing, painting on skin with needles is a whole other story. "The work, entitled TIM, sold for 150,000 euros (£130,000) to German art collector Rik Reinking in 2008, with Steiner receiving one third of the sum. “Many people think I'm a sculpture and have quite a shock once they find out I'm actually alive. "My skin belongs to Rik Reinking now," he says. "My back is the canvas, I am the temporary frame." As part of the deal, when Steiner dies his back is to be skinned, and the skin framed permanently, taking up a place in Reinking's personal art collection. "Gruesome is relative," Steiner says to those who find the idea macabre. "It's an old concept - in Japanese tattoo history it's been done many, many times. If it's framed nicely and looks good, I think it's not such a bad idea. "But this aspect of the work often sparks intense debate. "It becomes a huge discussion matter every time, and those confrontations with people have been very exciting and interesting," Steiner says. "People are either very into the idea, or say it's going too far - they're outraged or say it's against human rights. They come with ideas of slavery or prostitution." As part of his contract, Steiner must exhibit the tattoo by sitting topless in a gallery at least three times a year. “This year, I will have been doing this for a decade’, he said last year while he was in the middle of his longest-ever exhibition, a whole year at the Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) in Hobart, Tasmania, working five hours a day, six days a week. "Sit on your desk, with your legs dangling off, straight backed and holding on to your knees for 15 minutes - it's tough," he says. "I did this for 1500 hours. It was by far the most outrageously intense experience of my life. "All that changed throughout the days was my state of mind - sometimes heaven, sometimes hell, always totally alert."