Body To Body (Body Worlds)

Member Name: Ian Proudfoot

Product:	Body Worlds
Date:	19/05/02 (1901 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fascinating, Artistic?

Disadvantages: May be shocking to some , Very Medical based, Immoral?

Where does the line between art and a science fall? Can the grotesque be beautiful? And why has someone bothered plasticizing hundreds of corpses? These are just a few of the questions that enter you mind whilst visiting the controversial and intriguing 'Korpenwelten'or 'Body Worlds' exhibition.

Created with typical German efficiency by Professor Gunther Von Hagen and colleagues, the exhibition sets out to explore the fascinating anatomical structure of the human body. The uniqueness of the exhibition lies in that instead of using models, everything on show is constructed from real bodies. Everything preserved via a complex procedure of plasticization. The process creating carcasses that highlight the amazing complex structure of the human body. Every tendon, nerve and muscle perfectly captured.

Body World is probably of interest mainly to medical students or those with a morbid fascination for dissected bodies. The positioning of some of the bodies however suggests that there is an attempt to create something approximating art. 'The Swimmer' could almost be a something from a Damon Hirst installation it's positioning recalling the infamous shark in a tank. Whilst the centrepiece "Rider on a vaulting horse" recalls the Greek statues of Alexander the Great riding his warhorse Bucephalus. The majestic stance of the horse, a product of an artistic rather than a scientific mind.

Other exhibits are more comical in their positioning. One looks like it is beggaring for small change, another looks like uncannily like Robert De Niro, with it's half closed eyes and pained expression. Whilst another laterally cut up body spins around on a pole, resembling kebab meat rotating in a restaurant window.

In contrast to these lighter moments other dissections and displays hint at a darker more twisted mind at work. Exhibit 619 looks like it has escaped from the pages of a Clive Barker novel, it's exp
anded body towering over you as if to strike and pull you down. Whilst another body offers his perfectly removed skin to you as an a macabre gift.

It's moments like this that make you realise that the Body World is more than just dry biology and is a art statement. Which then rises ethical questions over the artistic positioning of the bodies. People may have donated there bodies for medical science but would they have improved of Van Hagen's artistic usage?

A question that is raised again over the use of foetuses in one of the side rooms. Displayed in a series of jars , a variety of foetuses of different ages and ailments are on show. At the centre lies the body of a women still carrying her baby of eight months. Shockingly powerful and grotesque and the same time it's effect is overwhelming. So much that a women visitor was knelt before it saying prayers with her rosary in hand. Again questions may be raised over the ethics of this display, and some vistiors might find it disturbing and unsettlingly.

However one question remains unanswered "Why leads someone to make such an effort in constructing and presenting such an exhibition?". Answers on your favourite body part to the normal address please.

Body Works is at the Atlantis Gallery, Brick Lane. Entrance fee is £10.

Nearest Tubes:

Liverpool Street (7 mins walk)
Aldgate East (5 Mins walk)

Summary: