Vesterheim Museum's new tattoo exhibit opens

"Tattoo: Identity through Ink" opens Saturday night at Vesterheim, with free admission from 7:00 p.m. until 9:00 p.m.

The event will include exclusive Valkyrie Strike IPA from Toppling Goliath Brewery for sale on tap and in bottles, plus live tattooing in the gallery by Brock Swenson, award-winning tattoo artist and owner of Brock's Valhalla Tattoo in Decorah.

The exhibit is sponsored by Nick and Courtney Rowley, with community partners Brock's Valhalla Tattoo and Toppling Goliath Brewing Co., and will run through April 26th of next year.

Tattoos have never been more popular than they are today. The exhibit celebrates both the serious and sensational ways body art reverberates in people's lives.  Of course there is a Scandinavian connection–with celebrated artists like Norwegian Johan Frederik Knudsen and Norwegian-American Amund Dietzel, the question of whether or not Vikings had tattoos, and the rise of a whole modern Neo-Nordic style of tattooing.