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April 21, 2006 > Arts & Entertainment > Body Worlds begs moral query, art appreciation

Body Worlds begs moral query, art appreciation

By Julia Bursten | Thresher Editorial Staff

I always get a rush of twisted pleasure when I have to get a shot. There is something sensual and even seductive about watching the needle disappear under my skin and feeling the saline solution take its course in my veins. It grounds me completely in the physical world for a moment, removing all my emotional concerns and stresses about deadlines for those few short, blissfully painful seconds.

My mother went to medical school when I was three, so I grew up unafraid of doctors, stethoscopes, tongue depressors and blood. They were my childhood playthings, with the exception of the latter — unless you count those times I skinned my knees in the sandbox. The human body has always fascinated me, and while I have no aspirations to become a physician, I love new insights into my own anatomy and physiology.

And so I found myself at Body Worlds 3, the latest in a series of traveling exhibitions by Gunther von Hagens, which is currently installed at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. The exhibit features real cadavers and body parts, mostly human — there is one artfully dissected horse — whose remains have been turned to pliable putty. This slightly gruesome and chemically genius process, dubbed Plastination, involves the polymerization of fleshy, muscular and other biological compounds, which turns a dead body into non-rotting, vividly colored putty. Then von Hagens, a German anatomist and the inventor of Plastination, goes to work creating art from his new materials.

He dissects the plasticized bodies at various levels, choosing which organs and muscles will stay on the skeleton and which will be sacrifices to this bizarre form of body art. He poses limbs playfully, peels away layers of flesh and reveals minute details of the nervous, respiratory and other bodily systems. It is a dream come true for a girl who wants to know where the fluid is going once it leaves the syringe. The result is as much art as it is science, and it reflects a celebration of the human body that would make da Vinci proud.

Von Hagens’ work has other parallels in the history of anatomy, too. A former political prisoner in totalitarian East Germany, the anatomist admits to a personal vendetta against authorities who believe in keeping anatomical viewing rights within the professional scientific community. Like the cadavers at Andreas Vesalius’ Anatomy Theater in Padua, Italy, which were dissected and dumped into a river before being discovered by hostile 16th-century religious authorities, von Hagens’ sculptures shed light on a subject ordinarily hidden away from the public.

Unfortunately, Body Worlds’ connections to historically controversial scientific practices do not end there.

This month’s issue of Discover magazine reported that von Hagens returned seven bodies originally obtained for plasticization after his former business partner Sui Hongjin was implicated for commercial use of executed Chinese prisoners’ bodies (“Body Snatchers,” Discover April 2006, page 10).

The practice, not unlike the common medieval grave-digging and body-snatching for the purpose of anatomical study, was legalized in China in the all-too-appropriate year of 1984. But it begs ethical questions regarding von Hagens’ exhibits. And while Leonardo and Andreas probably wouldn’t object to dead bodies being used as the medium of a scientific art exhibit, Body Worlds has drawn some concrete criticism in response to the unclear origins of its putty-like cadavers.

The criticism is deserved, since bullet holes were found in the skulls of two of Body Worlds’ “sculptures” in 2004. And despite my adulation for the aesthetically inspiring, Technicolor autopsies, I have finally found something about Body Worlds that grosses me out.

The boundaries of artists’ ethics have been stretched and broken many times before. Just recall the fruits of the erotic art industry, or look for the abundant anti-Semitism in early Walt Disney cartoons. But the idea of buying the bodies of captives, most of whom were probably killed by their vendors, seems immoral on a whole new level. So, since some of the cadavers’ origins are so truly obscene, should viewers still attempt to appreciate the exhibit’s aesthetic beauty?

I think so. While most people will recoil at the idea that they could be staring at the insides of a murdered corpse, Body Worlds evokes a more powerful emotional reaction than most recent exhibits at Houston’s art museums. The displays are still curiously, intricately and grotesquely beautiful.

And while I shudder when thinking of the cadavers’ origins, I cannot help but call Body Worlds 3 a well-crafted — if morally questionable — work of art. And any anger or disgust audiences feel serves to remind them of their own humanity — I know my empathetic grief for the people these bodies once were made me feel more alive than any syringe in my arm ever could.

Julia Bursten is a Lovett College sophomore and Lifestyles and Arts and Entertainment editor.

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