San Francisco is home to lots of museums. The de Young and Legion of Honor feature “high” art. Ripley’s Believe It Or Not is kitschy. The Museum of Craft and Design’s name tells visitors what to expect, while the Cable Car Museum, Beat Museum, and GLBT Historical Society specialize in slices of local history.
If tattoo artist Peter Bogdanov has his way, a unique museum focusing on the type of creations he produces inside his Legend Ink shop in Potrero Hill will soon be a part of this academy. Bogdanov wants to display art originally drawn on the skin of the person who wore it. Each tattoo featured in the “Beyond the Flesh” museum will be harvested from the person on which it’s inked following their death, put through a process of post-mortem preservation similar to the plastination method used in exhibits such as Body Worlds.
First presented in Tokyo in 1995, Body Worlds displays dissected human bodies, animals, and other anatomical pieces. The show has been installed at 50 museums globally, attracting more than 50 million visitors.
The concept of saving tattoos after death isn’t without precedent. Save My Ink Forever, founded in Ohio by Michael and Kyle Sherwood, has been performing such operations for nearly a decade, preserving more than 1,200 tattoos from deceased people as personal mementos for their loved ones.
Bogdanov wants to publicly display the tattoos, offering widespread access to view this unique art form. He’s launched a website detailing his vision for how a permanent exhibition space would allow tattoo artistry to “transcend the boundaries of mortality” and “become portals to the souls who once wore them, telling tales of passion, identity, and the vibrant hues of the human experience.”
Bogdanov was first tattooed in 1991: a gecko skeleton on his leg. Another soon followed. Within a year, he secured tattoo equipment and opened his own shop in the 900 block of Rhode Island Street in a house originally owned by his grandfather, Matthew.
“I tattooed five people for free,” he said, “and then I was a hundred bucks an hour within a couple of weeks, and I never looked back.”
Two years later, he expanded, moving into a space on Townsend Street, taking on a partner and apprentices. More moves followed: north to Portland, Oregon, south to Pacifica, west to Kauai. Landing in St. Petersburg, Florida, with a population one-third the size of San Francisco, Bogdanov was surprised to find more than a dozen museums, including one dedicated to the work of Salvador Dali. He thought St. Petersburg would be a good place for Beyond the Flesh.
“But as fate would have it,” Bogdanov said, “we got hit with a double hurricane.”
In 2024, Helene and Milton made landfall 13 days apart. Bogdanov lost almost everything in the ensuing floods, including hundreds of drawings and all his family photographs. Without those physical memories, he felt drawn back to San Francisco.
“Potrero Hill is our home,” he said. “I proposed to my wife at McKinley Square and we got married here. I may not have the photos anymore, but I can walk to where the memories are.”
Bogdanov opened Legend Ink at 10 Arkansas Street and began planning for Beyond the Flesh in earnest.
The first works—three tattoos from a single donor—have already been secured. Other people have committed to the process, but he understands the challenges.
“How do you build a museum of world-class tattooing that exists on people who are alive and well? By getting the word out to as many people as possible so they can sign up for it.”
His hope is to acquire between three and four-dozen more pieces to exhibit along with other items related to the history and artistry of tattooing. While the location is still being determined, Bogdanov hopes to open Beyond the Flesh’s doors by the end of next year.
Tamala Motta 
S Anne Steinberg