Art N' About

Author: Lauren Smith

An art student friend recently told me that his illustration class visited an exhibit of human corpses in Philadelphia. I immediately thought this must be illegal, but there are indeed over 200 real human corpses now on display at the Franklin Institute of Science Museum in Philly.

The highly-controversial exhibit is touring the United States with more stops this year in Houston, Boston and Denver. The controversy, as one might imagine, surrounds the donated human corpses that have been "plasticized." In the 1970s, Gunther von Hagens, a German scientist and the artist behind the Body Worlds exhibits, invented plasticization while a student. It involves removing water and fats from human tissue and replacing them with polymers. This prevents the corpses from decomposing.

The bodies come from Hagen's Heidelberg Institute for Plastination. A body donor signs a declaration of intent that gives the institute permission to have his body preserved and on display for eternity. Hagens only accepts bodies that have died of natural causes. Creepy? Yes. Possibly frightening to young children? Yes. All children under 13 must be accompanied by an adult when visiting the exhibit. All of this scientific stuff makes for an interesting, if not slightly disconcerting, exhibit. Ever wondered what your food looks like as it travels down your esophagus? Here, you can see "plasticized" food in a real human stomach. We read about the impact healthy lifestyles have on our bodies all the time. This may be the first opportunity to understand it. Body Worlds allows the viewer to compare a smooth aorta with one hardened with atherosclerosis. In the respiratory area, one can compare a healthy pink lung to one tarred with nicotine. At a certain point, visitors can even touch a group of plastinated organs.

Perhaps the creepiest part - and what could constitute it as art - is the poses of the "plastinates." In the "Chess Player," for example, the corpse has a serious expression on its face. In another, a plastinate with big muscles on his arms and a stomach flayed out like wings, wears a panama hat. The poses seem to be for no other purpose than aesthetics. Does that make the Body Worlds exhibit art? It seems that Hagens needs to decide if he is aiming for art or science. "The exhibit towed a rather unsatisfying line between art and science," my art student friend said. "I feel like it needed to be more of one or the other."

Whatever you want to call Hagens' work, it is clear that his corpses are not just dead bodies. They are frank, grotesque statements on mortality. The scientist writes on his website that he is "asking viewers to transcend their fundamental beliefs and convictions about our joint and inescapable fate." Hagens does not consider his work "art", however, he writes, "the human body is the last remaining nature in a man made environment. I hope for the exhibitions to be places of enlightenment and contemplation, even of philosophical and religious self-recognition, and open to interpretation regardless of the background and philosophy of life of the viewer." And isn't that art?