Body Worlds

Went to see Body Worlds last Saturday night at 3 a.m. with R. As usual, we waited until the last possible minute, so that's the only ticket we could get -- but it was really fun, and there was such a novelty in going to the museum at that time of night. And it was still crazy crowded. Long lines, in spite of the timed tickets. But pretty well worth the wait.


It's pretty crazy. It's shocking how quickly seeing people that have essentially been turned into plasticized meat & splayed out becomes normative. It really was pretty cool, and fascinating from both a scientific and aesthetic perspective.

The most interesting thing for me, however, is the controversy surrounding it in Germany, where Dr. Gunther Von Hagens first developed and displayed this technology as artwork. People were outraged, and there were rumors (don't know if they were ever substantiated) that the bodies were bought from the Chinese Gov't., which was killing prisoners. I believe he still isn't able to display them in Germany. But the key thing in the controversy was that they were considered art, and the good Dr. presented himself as both scientist and sculptor.

In the U.S., there has been little controversy, and the show has sold out to blockbuster crowds, and I suspect in large part because it has been marketed purely as science (although in the exhibit they are presented as art, in a sense, because they have nameplates with the year on them just as in an art museum). There were even enormous billboards with the human meat sculptures displayed large on busy streets, and no one freaked or even complained.

If it was presented at the art museum, I believe people would have a difficult time with it -- art is seen as more "frivolous" than science, even though just as much (and often the same things) is learned through it. People forget about the early anitomical studies -- for example, Pietro del Cortona's early renaissance dissection drawings were some of the earliest diagrams of the human body on the inside.

It's interesting, sometimes, how the lack of general knowledge about art history can collide with social taboos.