Bodies...The Exhibition

[SPQR]

Anyone living in Las Vegas might want to check this out.

A controversial exhibit that uses skinned and dissected cadavers to show how the human body works will open at the Tropicana on June 23.

Sounds pretty cool.

 

[Earthborn]

It is pretty cool. I went to the exhibit in Cologne in 2000. That was when Gunther von Hagens still claimed that all the bodies he receives come from people who specifically signed up for it. That turned out not quite to be the case:

There were legal proceedings against von Hagens in Siberia regarding a shipment of 56 corpses to Heidelberg.

In October 2003, a parliamentary committee in Kyrgyzstan investigated accusations that von Hagens had illegally received and plastinated several hundred corpses from prisons, psychiatric institutions and hospitals in Kyrgyzstan, some without prior notification of the families. Von Hagens himself testified at the meeting; he said he had received nine corpses from Kyrgyzstan hospitals, none had been used for the Body Worlds exhibition, and that he was not involved with nor responsible for the notification of families.

In January 2004, the German news magazine Der Spiegel reported that von Hagens had acquired some corpses from executed prisoners in China; he countered that he did not know the origin of the bodies and went on to cremate several of the disputed cadavers. German prosecutors declined to press charges, and Von Hagens was granted an interim injunction against Der Spiegel in March 2005, preventing the magazine from claiming that Body Worlds contain the bodies of executed prisoners.

Von Hagens is a very peculiar fellow.

 

[Physiotherapist]

I went to see Bodies at the Earls Court Exhibition Centre in London a couple of months ago and thought it was extremely good. There was nothing there that was in poor taste at all and I think it was done for purely educational purposes. Some of the dissections were amazing, especially the one that showed the brain and spinal cord and then all the peripheral nerves. There was also one of the cranial nerves too. Painstaking stuff.

I saw the Von Hagens Bodyworlds exhibition four years ago now, when it was in London, however, this was more popular as it was sensationalisaed somewhat. This guy is pretty eccentric though and seems to take pleasure in courting controversy whereever he goes in the world.

Following his show, there were massive ethical debates about what he was doing.

 

[brodski]

I saw the "bodyworlds" exhibition back in, I think, 2002 in a disused brewery in brick lane. I was shocked at the sacrilegious nature of the event, I mean, a DISSUSED BRWERY * shudder * . All joking aside, most of the exhibition was fantastic, tasteful and very informative. However there was 1 exhibit which I did find slightly distasteful. Basically it was a corpse made to look something akin to Harry Hotter on a broomstick, including the face being piled up to form a wizards hat. That particular exhibit stood out, because it seem to be there purely as a joke (or to shock people), and was not informative or educational in the slightest. Other than that, a fantastic exhibition.

 

[Arkan_Wolfshade]

Saw it when it was in Chicago last year. Absolutely fascinating. Though, I found the individual organs section to be of more interest to me than the full bodies.

 

[SPQR]

I'll be going to this thing today(6-24-06) at around 10:00 or 10:30 a.m. I'll be wearing my TAM 4 shirt.

Say "Hi" if you see me.

 

[Smart_Cookie]

We just went to see the Body Worlds exhibit in St. Paul, MN, last month.

In fact, that was the main reason for us to drive all the way there - about an 8 hour trip.

Thought it was very well done. It does get to be a bit repetitive after a while, though. There's only so many different ways you can display the human anatomy. Only thing - now I wish I had spent the extra money on the audio tour. Would have added to the experience.

Re: the executed prisoners. von Hagens has a large disclaimer on his website that no prisoners were used in his exhibits. Guess he completely denies the accusation. It would be interesting to find out the truth.

 

[RandFan]

I have a hard time with this kind of display. I concede that it is purely a personal thing. I'm not sure why I respond so viscerally. In any event this sounds similar to the Mütter Museum.

 

[capall]

I was at the body word in Houston a few weeks back, cool stuff, really liked one that had a horse and rider, just shows how similar we are when you peel back a few layers. I wish they had more animals there to show just how similar we are to them, I think a chimp on display beside a human would have been really interesting.

 

[SPQR]

There weren't any animals at the Vegas exhibit, but it was still supremely fascinating. My favorite part had to be the circulatory exhibit where they had just the veins of the whole body and certain parts displayed. It was also interesting to learn the process by which the bodies where preserved.

The whole experience made me feel better about humanity as a whole. I hardly heard any people say, "gross" or "disgusting." The best part was seeing people look at the exhibits and then look at the corresponding places on their own bodies and see everything work; such as people watching the tendons in their own arms move under their skin. It proved to me that the majority of people would find other aspects of science genuinely interesting if they were presented in a fascinating and somewhat unusal matter.

 

[athon]

I loved the one in New York earlier this year. It's all done tastefully and inspires people to be curious about biology.

However, the controversy over where the cadavers came from and whether the artists had express permission to use them in that manner is something I have massive concern over. I'll see if I can dredge up the articles on that. Disturbing if true.

Athon