|
Published 10/04/02
Mother and Child Divided
Dr Robert Johnston
Professor Gunther von Hagens’ ‘Korperwelten
(Body Worlds): Fascination Beneath the Surface’ is at the Atlantis
Gallery, Old Truman Brewery, Brick Lane, London from March 23 to
September 29 2002 (extended until 9 February 2003)
‘Body Worlds’ exhibits human corpses: skinned, gutted,
flayed, peeled, shelled, filleted, opened up – dissected in
every imaginable way. The cadavers are perfectly preserved by infusion
with plastics and then posed in order to enlighten as science and
elevate as art.
Professor Gunther von Hagens created the exhibition and invented
plastination, the method by which water in body tissues is replaced
first by acetone, then by a cocktail of plastics and rubbers. Human
tissues are 70% water and only 30% solids, the result of the process
is a preserved specimen the exact shape, size and colour of the
original, but which should last indefinitely.
The exhibits are arranged to introduce viewers gently to the subject.
Early display cases contain preserved organs, bones and joints and
a skeleton hangs nearby. There are slices of bodies from different
angles and – especially fascinating – dissections of limbs
in which joints have been replaced with stainless steel, bones joined
with plates and screws, and hearts cut open to reveal prosthetic
valves. The most disgust I heard in the entire gallery was expressed
over the side-by-side comparison of a smoker’s lungs with a
non-smoker’s lungs, and an alcoholic’s liver with a normal
liver – after those, even the most extraordinary divisions
and arrangements of body parts seemed tasteful.
The first complete body dissections are fairly straightforward.
A flayed cadaver (‘Whole Body Gestalt Plastinate with Skin’)
stands holding his entire skin like a trophy. If we didn’t
recognise it already, the catalogue reminds us of medieval and renaissance
illustrations of similar poses. Further into the exhibition, dissections
become more demonstrative of the relationship between organs, nerves,
muscles, joints and greater freedom is taken to pose the bodies
in striking and unsettling ways – sometimes in homage to familiar
works of art – but always with a purpose, never purely to shock.
‘Muscleman with His Skeleton’ shows all the muscles of
the body as though they had stepped out of their skeleton. ‘The
Runner’ shows the same muscles, remaining attached but splayed
and folded back to illustrate how each muscle is attached to the
bones and joints. ‘Posed Specimen of the Nervous System’
shows how the brain and spinal cord send branches to every part
of the body. ‘The Chess Player’ – which sits at a
table and stares at a chessboard, has brain and spinal cord opened,
with peripheral nerves dissected to show the route by which signals
from the brain are transmitted to the hands. ‘The Organ Man’
has the skeleton and musculature divided vertically to demonstrate
the arrangement of the internal organs. ‘Reclining Woman in
the 8th Month of Pregnancy’, is, perhaps the most arresting.
She lies in a classic pose of the artistic nude with womb opened
to reveal an almost fully mature foetus; it could be tasteless and
offensive, but in fact achieves a poignancy that is more than enough
to justify the entire exhibition.
There is also a section that consists of preserved blood vessels
– exposing a detailed architecture that is not only spectacularly
beautiful, but confirms what we already know, that the most sensitive
parts of our bodies are also the most bloody – the face, tongue,
fingers and genitals.
As if to pre-empt inevitable complaints of new affronts to human
dignity, the catalogue provides an outline of the history of anatomical
studies, from Egyptian mummification, to Galen, Leonardo and Vesalius.
We are reminded of the dissections for public amusement that took
place in the 16th and 17th centuries, the subsequent forbidding
of anatomical studies (von Hagens is rather too kind about the role
of the church) and the ignoble history of grave robbings that were
necessary for medical education up to the late 19th century.
At its inception, the exhibition was intended solely as an exercise
in education about the human body. Von Hagens was surprised by both
the immense public interest and by the controversy and the exhibition
has evolved in response. The educational value of each dissection
is clearly spelt out (in the case of the Audio Guide the spelling
out is so detailed and lengthy I turned it off after the first few
exhibits). The catalogue and all other materials emphasise the informed
consent process for body donors, and the professor has put his body
where his mouth is, by volunteering himself for the process after
his death. However, a dissenting voice is included in the catalogue.
Pastor Ulrich Fischer, a regional bishop of the German Lutheran
Church provides a closely argued, but unconvincing, analysis of
the ethics of human dissection and display. He starts with an indisputable
fact – that von Hagens bears a remarkable resemblance to Joseph
Beuys and plays it for all it’s worth by wearing a Fedora,
seemingly at all times. Pastor Fischer concludes that von Hagens
is a self-promoter, encourages voyeurism rather than education,
and that the exhibition is a spectacle that devalues human life
– a point of view not shared by the overwhelming number of
entries in the comment book, or by any of the conversations overheard
on the day I attended.
‘The greatest revelation is the testicles’ one young
man whispered to his girlfriend, as they stared at ‘The Swordsman’
– posed like a skinned D’Artagnan running his rapier through
one of Cardinal Richelieu’s henchmen. From a distance, ‘The
Swordsman’ is a unique anatomical curiosity – a man with
three legs and three penises. Up close, the left leg is dissected
in half to illustrate different muscle groups. The real surprise
is that six-inch long, three-quarter inch thick, white structures
anchor each testicle to the abdominal wall and hang between the
legs on either side of the penis. The revelation was widely shared
– ‘I thought they were just like two Crème Eggs
rolling free in an ankle sock,’ said an older man.
For me, there were many revelations. My first six months at medical
school were spent dissecting a cadaver that had spent months pickling
in chemicals, hardening, shrivelling, turning grey and becoming
almost unrecognisable as a human body. It was impossible to correlate
the beautiful illustrations in my anatomy textbook with the disgusting
mass I was slicing through. My skin and clothing were impregnated
with formaldehyde, the unshakeable pungent whiff that is the mark
of every first-year medical student. The man who donated his body
to medical science would have been deeply disappointed at how little
value he had been to me when I eventually began to cut open living
people. Had he donated his body to Professor von Hagens, however,
he could have made a real and lasting contribution to my understanding
of anatomy.
The exhibition concludes with a demonstration of the plastination
process and information on how to order chemical supplies and equipment
– although this is not something one should attempt at home.
Von Hagens techniques are now employed in 250 laboratories in 34
countries around the world, there is an International Society for
Plastination, a journal and an annual conference. Although he does
not (yet) accept private commissions for plastination of loved ones,
in a possible glimpse of the future, he suggests that contemporary
historical figures might be preserved (whole, rather than dissected)
for display in mausoleums or crypts.
Von Hagens’ plastinations are not only perfectly, odourlessly,
preserved but, more important, they are masterpieces of anatomical
display. Those without a medical background may not fully appreciate
the skill with which the dissections have been done. There may be
criticism of von Hagens’ artistic pretentions, but there can
be none of his attention to anatomical detail. Ivan Massow would
have no cause for complaint; if there is an opposite of ‘craftless
tat’ this is it.
For all the religious objections, tabloid hysteria, whispers of
‘Dr Mengele’, ‘repugnance’ and breaching of
‘taste and decency’, the ‘Body Worlds’ exhibition
is a remarkably sober, intelligent and, even, enlightening affair.
|
