I almost threw up at the Museum of Science and Industry yesterday.
I went to see – with an anticipation years in the making – Body Worlds, an exhibit that features the skinned, flayed and plastinated bodies of humans who donated their corporal selves to a fellow named Gunther van Hagens. It is at once medically informative and voyeuristically exhibitionist.
The first half of the exhibit discusses the human body, how it changes, why we break down over the years, and shows a variety of bones and body parts, including a display of fetuses. That was the first sign I might not be totally enamored with Body Worlds, which I’ve long wanted to see, and have missed numerous times in Chicago and Kansas City.
Actually, the first sign was the plastinated human holding his skin. Yes, the man was holding his skin like a cloak.
To be honest, I did learn a lot in this first part of the exhibit, but I began to feel queasy as I saw more and more mutilated bodies on display. The second half of the exhibit had my queasy and the sight of things, but also at how the bodies were presented.
See van Hagens is known as an anatomist, but I’d also call him an antagonist. There are well documented controversies surrounding Body Worlds and van Hagens, including a plastinated sculpture he made of two people having sex. The exhibit seemed to move from information to exhibitionist, with a woman baring her breasts (the rest of her was all muscle) on a balance beam, two guys playing hockey and another pair of men playing football. It weirded me out, I think because it felt like someone was enacting a creepy fantasy by making these skinned humans do whatever he wanted. If anything, it made me think, which I suppose is what art should do. But is Body Worlds art?
There seemed to be little medical reasoning for showing two plastinated men playing hockey. The woman spliced in three while pedaling felt wrong. I fully understand that these people authorized van Hagens to do what he pleases with their bodies, but I wonder if they knew they would be turned into entertainment, rather than a learning tool.
