Gunther Van Hagens The Fraud
by Body works is not the first time human bodies have been on display.
Image by jemsweb via Flickr
So I’ve gotten a chance to see Gunter van Hagens works–if that’s what people want to call it. I’ll admit, I was intrigued by the idea of turning a corpse into a model of art. But to say that you were the one who invented the technique of displaying the human body, well that’s a bit of a stretch. If anyone has ever remembered an ecorche by Fragonard (especially The Horseman), then you’ll know that using human corpses as a model of art isn’t exactly a new technique.
Fragonard began his art centuries ago. Upon close examination, many of Fragonard’s works are no different that Hagens. If anything, Fragonard was the genius behind Hagens body works movement. Fragonard created hundreds of models, while only a few are on display today.
It’s not that I don’t like looking at death and life before my eyes. There is a surreal aspect of knowing that eventually, our bodies will turn to decay. Composing art out of corpses is the only way to immortalize the human body. The issue I have at hand is the idea that he’s selling some of his pieces. There’s something wrong with this concept. Some of pieces sell for $100 to over $100,000. Why is he doing this? To stop the black market demand of people buying body parts from the dead. Really.
Hagens stipulates that his work is closely associated to the market of jewelry. There is the demand, and he’s the supplier. While the human body is beautiful, that doesn’t make it okay to profit from the dead. Hagen is nothing more than a body snatcher who profits from his so-called works.
It’s one thing to display these bodies in the name of science, so that we as a society can see the body in its human condition. It’s one thing to be able to view the body, and what lies beneath our skin. It’s a different story when you choose to slab a body, and sell it so that someone can prop that slab on their wall.
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