Bodies of Work

Bill Varian reports in today's St. Petersburg Times ("Under Our Skin") that Tampa's Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) is trying to acquire the controversial show "Bodies Revealed." Varian describes the exhibit as, "a display of cadavers and body parts that provides an inside-out view of what powered them in life.... dissected to reveal what's inside and preserved through a process known as plastination, or polymer preservation."

The photo gallery accompanying the article shows blood vessels in lungs pink and fuzzy as cherry blossoms. When I see the cadaver showing layering and attachment of muscles to the skeleton I think of a mystical tree. I draw a clear distinction between this -- truly a look at what makes us tick -- and the work of German doctor Gunther von Hagens, who has used plastination to place cadavers in "artful" poses.

Andrew Stuttaford, in The National Review ("I See Dead People," May 2, 2002), gave an inkling of that distinction when he wrote:

The clearest evidence of von Hagens's artistic pretensions can be seen in his most "aesthetically" displayed specimens. The Chess Player contemplates the board, his exposed brain a reminder that this is someone long past checkmate. Nearby, a pregnant woman reclines in a ghastly parody of a provocative pose, womb cut open to reveal the eight-month fetus within. The skeleton of The Runner is suspended in motion, tendon and sinew flowing out behind him in an impression of speed. Rearing Horse With Rider features the husk of a stallion mounted by the remains of his rider, a man with a brain in each hand, one human, and the other equine. Art? No, just a savage form of carney kitsch.

I first heard of von Hagens's work through a story on BBC radio. My journal from January 22, 1998, reads:

Ths morning on the BBC -- a story concerning an art exhibit in Mannheim, Germany, scheduled to continue on to Tokyo and worldwide to any museum brave enough to display it. Essentially, a showing of corpses and body parts, plasticized with a technology that arrests decay. In fact, argue opponents, one can just as well show the same thing with plastic models; in fact the procedure makes the real thing look like plastic.

Arguments about real human beings being robbed of their dignity, on display as objects. A man in mid-running stride. A woman sitting at a desk about to answer the phone. "A chamber of horrors," others call it. Some find it fascinating. A doctor is the conceptual artist here.

He said these people requested specifically in their wills to be put on display after death, which leaves me to wonder how specific the wording was. Was it, "Use me for scientific research?" or, "Use me in an art display, intact or dissected, and in whatever artful pose you like"? Did he go around offering money to the desperate and poverty-stricken, who agreed to sell their bodies if not their souls? Are the corpses the remains of people of low station in life, who saw in this display a chance for reincarnation-in-death into a more noble image? In fact, some museum-goers have, after seeing the corpses, offered their own bodies up portmortem. An offering upon the altar of -- what?

And the dual image does not escape me of the German doctor and displayed corpses in Mannheim 1998, and the German doctors and displayed corpses in Auschwitz 1941, etc. They did it all "for science," too, divorcing emotion (save for their enthusiasm) and the soul from objects that once were animate. A human taxidermy.

Second story: that of the birth rate in the U.S. of cloned calves, and the prospect of introducing DNA markers into them to get "nutraceuticals" (the word already coined now), pharmaceuticals carried in such things as cow's milk. So, a dose of drugs and of bovine growth hormone and who knows what other artificially-introduced chemicals? If this becomes the cheaper standard for drug delivery, what does that do for folks who are lactose-intolerant or vegans?

And, of course, the use of living animals as delivery systems, just as human beings are used in Mannheim as art. Usage in death as in life, which might lead to one or the other extreme: either a complete abdication of the soul as one loses individuality and spirit, using and used -- or a transcendance beyond the mechanics of use and of outside stimuli. A spiritual renaissance in tandem with spiritual and material decay.

I have no desire to see "Body Worlds" -- the von Hagen exhibit -- but I might go to see "Bodies Revealed" if it comes to MOSI. I see exploitation in the former, scientific and humanistic relevance in the latter. "Body Worlds" with its "inventive" poses is considered "art", which could just as well be done with "real plastic" instead of plasticized human remains. In contrast, "Bodies Revealed" garners the interest of a museum of science.

When I underwent laparoscopic sterilization in 1983 I was given the opportunity to look inside. I jumped at the chance (not literally; I was in stirrups) and was enthralled. My womb was a great red-purplish planet with two ovarian moons. The delicate fluting of my Fallopian tubes were milky-pale ballet dancers in a dark void. Truly I took an excursion into "inner space," and I view "Bodies Revealed" as an extension of that, a trip through the body-as-temple.

I see "Body Worlds" as a desecration of that temple. The von Hagen reminds me of graffiti I encountered while riding the New York City subway to school. Frequently, ads showing close-ups of women's faces were defaced, ejaculating penises drawn on their mouths. Clearly the graffiti were acts of disrespect in their manipulation of an image.

I see no respect in what von Hagen does. I do see respect in "Bodies Revealed." And that's where I draw the line.