Legacy MattersI have decried Gunther von Hagen's popular exhibitions of plastinized dead bodies before. Disgust is the proper emotion at his exhibition of dead bodies copulating.
Should I be surprised that Some People Want to Become "Cadaver Porn"?
Even though von Hagens is in ill health, his work continues. Indeed, people are apparently lining up to be plasticized and posed for eternity
Even though
Donors to the plastination program sign away their right to say how their bodies might be posed. (The consent form does ask if they agree to be “exhibited in public” or “interpreted as anatomical works of art,” but it also says their answers to these questions are “recommendations rather than binding terms.”) Von Hagens can arrange his corpses in a mock coitus or cast a mold of them to make an ersatz Jesus Christ—both of these are on display in Guben—or he can carve them up and ship the parts for use in classrooms. He can do with them exactly as he pleases.
Wesley J Smith comments
How we treat the dead tells us how much about how we perceive the importance of life. Context is everything in matters such as these, of course. We display mummies, for example, but that is more a matter of awe and absorbing human history than getting an adrenalin thrill out of death. It is also true that some religious orders display skeletons and bones to be viewed. But, however misguided these endeavors might be, they are not meant as entertainment in the same sense as von Hagens’ plastinated bodies. To the contrary, the point is to remind people to pay heed to eternal things, e.g., that dust they were and dust they shall become again.Posted by Jill Fallon at February 20, 2013 11:22 AM | Permalink
This seems very different to me. Slicing, plasticizing, and displaying cadavers to provide a nihilistic or hedonistic thrill proclaims that our lives have no inherent meaning beyond the sensations of the moment. If I am right about that, von Hagens’ continued popularity is a very disturbing sign of the times.