A while ago I was asked to respond to the following list of questions regarding Gunther von Hagens'
Body Worlds:
1. There's something decadent, creepy, a little "Cabaret"/Weimar Republic, going on with Gunther von Hagens' work, don't you think? Where does Bodyworlds fit into the history of the public exhibition of
oddities/freakshows?
2. Are you guys fans? What were your favorite pieces/parts of the exhibit?
3. What is your perspective on Gunther's decision to emphasize the very impersonal nature of the donors in telling the very general story of the body, rather than to focus on the specific and the personal? What type of story is more compelling to you as artists?
4. As artists, you're preoccupied either with the imperfections of
perfections of a form. Gunther seems to be attentive to both, right. Is
Gunther an artist or a scientist? Do you consider yourselves to be artists or scientists or somewhere in the middle as well?
5. I saw the exhibit in Chicago and I don't remember the prominence of all the touchy-feely black banners proclaiming things like, "SPIRIT," "FAITH," "AWARENESS," "JUSTICE." What did you guys make of that?
6. I remember more penises in Chicago too. Everything seemed to have an air of prudishness here. Did you feel that?
Here are my answers. The first three questions sort of got garbbled together in my long-winded answer. I sometimes find it hard to express my convoluted feelings about body worlds...so here goes!
1. There's something decadent, creepy, a little "Cabaret"/Weimar Republic, going on with Gunther von Hagens' work, don't you think? Where does Bodyworlds fit into the history of the public exhibition of
oddities/freakshows?
I think thats a very interesting observation. If I compare the plsatinates prepared by von Hagens himself to still photos of cabaret I cant help but feel a similar reactionthe joyous body flung incongruously against a background noise of deep emptinessthe smiling face and exuberant pose a mask for an almost nihilistic sensibility. Maybe Im projecting here, but my sense is that von Hagens has succeeded more potently in expressing an atheistic sadness than he has at instilling awe and wonder. This may have more to do with how we experienced the exhibit than with the exhibits true persona. Von Hagens is acutely aware of the ambivalence that impregnates his work. In his introduction to the Body Worlds exhibition catalogue he even goes so far as to quote Kants notion of two-pronged awareness (i.e: the emotional and the intellectual). I would suggest that this sensibility is as vital to the creation of these pieces as it is to their various effects on viewers. As a society, we dont like to mix emotions. We have forgone the renaissance tradition of anatomical display in which the entire body is displayed posed and imbued with vitality, for the sterile, purely intellectual, presentation of divided aspects of the corpse.
It is the failure to acknowledge the emotional, or possibly artistic, motivations behind these anatomical presentations that gave this exhibit such an incongruous feeling. During our walkthrough I felt a continuous struggle between the intent of the work and the intent of the exhibition. Like a product that is inappropriately limited by its branding. While the tour guides and headsets spoke in cool terms of scientific value and anatomical wonder, the pieces themselves were whispering something elseor perhaps thats simply what it sounds like when the dead shout.
The argument has been made many times about freakshows, By presenting these deformed human oddities we are allowing the public to learn about genetics, the influence of disease, the power of the human body. In the heyday of carnivals and midways, displays of abnormal humans were defended in much the same way. I am sure Barnum would attest that his sideshow performers demonstrated the miraculous wonder of the human form. But the reality was that most people came to gawk, to stand safely near something they greatly feared. Like a haunted house, freakshows provided an opportunity to sidle up against the unknown, the strange and fearsome, and pop out the far end of the tent into the bright lights and sounds of normal society. The Body Worlds exhibit provides the same experience. The comment books at the end of the exhibit were filled with proud declarations of faced fears and conquered trepidations. But what chance was there of truly coming face to face with your own mortality?
As you point out, the focus of any explainer regarding the donors was very general. The displays were presented as an exploration of THE human body, generally not of A human body. There were some notable exceptions. Among them was one of my favorite pieces. Listed in the exhibition catalogue as 3d Slice Plastination, this anatomical preparation consisted of a man in five thin slices. What made this piece stand out to me was the presence of a prominent tattoo on the mans shoulder. If I recall it was the image of a Spartan warrior helmet. Other examples include the athlete on the Olympic rings with a Mohawk and of course the Winged Man with the fedora hat that bridged the gap between life and death according to the small plaque nearby. These pieces interested me because, like many of the other preparations, they were quite funny. They had an almost whimsical air about them that clashed titanically with the somber, philosophical trappings of the exhibit.
"3d Slice Plastination"
Is this serious anatomy?
I am equally compelled by the general story of this exhibit as I am with the specific stories of those people whose bodies make it up. When I am creating a piece of taxidermy I am sometimes attempting to comment on the act of displaying animal remains in a very general manner. Other times, as with Roadkill Opossum, I am using the very specific story of that particular animal to relate a more general idea. That animal is mounted almost exactly as I found it, dead and bloody on the pavement. The piece functions as much as a shrine to that animals death as a more traditional mount supposedly serves as a shrine to the animals life. At the same time, I hope it conjures more general criticisms of displayed remains. In the case of taxidermy animals we are much more comfortable with mounts that attempt to replicate the image of the living animal. The anatomical display of human bodies attempts something similar to taxidermy mounts. They attempt to transform the human corpse into something innocuous. A few days after we visited the Body Worlds exhibit I had the opportunity to see a human corpse in a very different situation. A few friends and I were walking across a bridge when we saw that the county medical examiner was retrieving a body from the riverbank bellow. For a few moments the body rolled free from the blue tarp that was concealing it. Those brief flashes of lividness were far more profoundly affecting to many of us than any of our visits to Body Worlds.
4. As artists, you're preoccupied either with the imperfections of perfections of a form. Gunther seems to be attentive to both, right. Is Gunther an artist or a scientist? Do you consider yourselves to be artists or scientists or somewhere in the middle as well?
Von Hagens says of himself that he is not an artist, but it seems that he is hesitant to describe himself with this term more out of an insecurity regarding his aesthetic abilities than any rejection of the artistic intent his work embodies. Indeed he often seems to revel in the idea that many people do consider his work artto the point that he invokes the notion that art is in the eye of the beholder mere sentences before he casually mentions the large percentage of visitors who come to the Body Worlds exhibit strictly because of its artistic appeal. (again, exhibition catalogue intro). Ultimately he comes to the conclusion that he is a craftsman. The workman like preparation of the bodies would seem to support that. Personally, I think the difference between a craftsman and an artist lies in the expressed intent. If a person builds a wall to support a roof, she is a carpenter. If she builds a wall in the middle of a field to explore the forms, functions and social significance of walls, then she is an artist. I have a feeling von Hagens would like to call himself an artist, but is afraid to do so. Not only because using human (or animal for that matter) bodies to create art is much more controversial than using them for anatomical education, but also because he is afraid that his work lacks merit. Abiding by those conditionsI think Ill call myself a craftsman too.
5. I saw the exhibit in Chicago and I don't remember the prominence of all the touchy-feely black banners proclaiming things like, "SPIRIT," "FAITH," "AWARENESS," "JUSTICE." What did you guys make of that?
I probably touched on this earlier, but I wanted to mention one word that stood out to me. Prudence. Under the circumstances I found that to be an exceptionally loaded word, and ,unlike many of the other sentimental platitudes, astonishingly pertinent to the exhibit to which it pertained. Indeed, prudence seemed to be of primary concern to the people setting this exhibit up. This was most evident in what I like to call the baby roomor the pro-choice advocacy room. The fetuses were displayed in what I consider to be a wholly unscientific manor, with much more attention to prudence than to learning. The room was draped in black velvet and was the only place in the exhibit where reverential music played softly in the background. To me, it represented almost a Blake-ian (making up my own words?) belief in the divinity of fetal innocence. None of the other adult bodies were treated with such reverence. The only other child (the blood vessel prep of a nuclear family) showed an adolescent, probably already corrupted by the evils of fallen man, giving a joyous thumbs up as if to say, Its ok folks! I love being dead! There were also no dissections of fetuses, unlike the adult bodies which were stretched, skinned, exploded and shuffled. I guess it just wouldnt be prudent.
Perfect little angel.
Not-so-perfect little angel.
( to be fair they did have a few deformed fetuses)
6. I remember more penises in Chicago too. Everything seemed to have an air of prudishness here. Did you feel that?
Guess I covered most of that above also. I do think that the prevalence of comments about genitals and the locker-room attitude of many who attended suggest that a great number of people here were not swept away by the majesty of the human body. Maybe that is a sort of defense against the possibly frightening contemplation viewing human cadavers (no matter how humorously posed) can bring about. Its hard to contemplate your own mortality when you are busy snickering about some dead guys cock. Also I think its fair to say that whoever wrote Too many dicks, not enough pussies: always a bad situation was probably not coming away from this exhibit with a newfound respect for the divine machinations of our corporeal form.
" huh huh..huh huh, hey Beavis, look at that dude's wang, it looks like your mom"