Are There Limits to Art?

Some of you might recognise the name Gunther von Hagens, but for most of us, the name might not be readily recognisable but his Body Worlds “artwork”, however, have attracted a quasi cult following with a good share of controversies.

So what is Body Worlds? It is an exhibition that tours around the world which exhibits preserved human or animal bodies. These bodies are prepared using a technique called plastination.

According to Body Worlds website, Von Hagens invented and patented his technique of plastination in 1977. The technique focuses on removing water and fat from the biological tissue and replace them with a type of resin to preserve the flesh. At first the technique was simply used on small animals and/or body parts. It was only in the 90s that technology has evolved to allow the plastination of a full human body.

In 1995, he exhibited his first Body Worlds in Japan and was an instant hit attracting 3 million visitors. In the next decade he opened a series of Body Worlds exhibitions and was never shy of controversies with his “art”.

Hagens claims that the bodies used come from volunteers who have prior knowledge that their bodies will be used for exhibitions. However, von Hagens has in several occasions in the past been accused by the authorities of several countries for acquiring bodies either illegally or without knowledge of the donor or its family.

In 2002, von Hagens courted controversy in the British Isles when he performed a public autopsy in front of a sold-out audience of 500. Public autopsies, is a criminal act under the British law, therefore by doing that, he was running the risk of being imprisoned.

In October of 2003, BBC News reported that close to a century of bodies used for the exhibition came from several medical centres from Kyrgyzstan and they were all acquired illegally. On the same year, an animal rights group launched a formal complaint that von Hagens had plastinated a gorilla corpse from Hannover Zoo without legal documents.

In January 2004, Der Spiegel, a German broadsheet, has claimed that von Hagens had acquired corpses from executed Chinese prisoners, which is a criminal act in Germany.

His latest controversy, as reported by The Telegraph on May of 2009, surrounds the usage of two corpses having sexual intercourse. Politicians and clerics alike have condemned the exhibit and labelled it lewd adding that pornography is in itself an insult to the dead.

Is sex depicted in artwork really an insult to the dead or to the living?

The truth is, since the beginning of time when humans started to create art, sex has always been used as a theme. Take Venus from the Paleolithic, the figurines clearly depict women with exaggerated sexual characteristics to symbolize fertility.

The Greeks often created paintings and sculptures with strong sexual connotations, including homosexual imageries.

In the Middle East, the Sumerians, Assyrians, Babylonians all depicted their Goddess of sex and love Ishtar/Inanna, naked and voluptuous.

Indians, of course, are famous for Kama Sutra, an ancient text describing Human Sexual Behaviour. The text managed to travel to China and Japan, allowing these cultures to create the erotic illustrations.

The trend has continued to medieval period, an era in which religious belief was strong and sexual oppression was strife, often paintings would depict virgin with a child naked. During renaissance the love for simulating classical art gave way to more nudity expression in art, a good example of such would be the Michelangelo sculpture of David.

At one point the Roman Catholic Church organized a “fig-leaf campaign”, where certain statues and paintings that portrayed full frontal nudity would be covered by a fig leaf. David of Michelangelo was at one point covered. The church has since dropped the campaign.

As societies progressed and become less prudent, debates started to emerge as to what was considered lewd and what is art. In the 18th century, most French salons would consider full frontal nudity to be acceptable only when the setting was clearly allegorical or mythical, i.e. “classical”.

One of the first paintings to emerge in Europe depicting a woman in full frontal nudity without the “classical” pretense was The Nude Maja by Francisco Goya. The painting immediately created an outrage among the deeply religious Spanish society. Goya however refused to paint clothes over Maja and instead painted a second copy with Maja fully clothed.

In the 19th and 20th century more artists further pushed the boundaries of sexual representation in art often challenging the social norms. And as new forms of media emerge, such as radio, television, photography, internet, etc, these controversies became great public relations tools for these artists as they saw controversies to be synonymous to greater notoriety.

Hugh Grant, Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian, Pamela Anderson all have something in common. They have all been embroiled in a sex scandal which brought them fame.

In essence art is a representation of the culture we live in and it can be used as a form of illustrating life or a critique of the society we live in. But if used solely for the purpose of creating controversy and hence generate more PR for one self, it would seem that they have simply lost their sense of purpose as an artist.

A recent visit to the art exhibition of Tracey Emin, I found several art works of personal nature but with strong sexual imageries. Several questions emerged. Is Emin really a promiscuous person by nature or is she living a life with the persona she created from her artwork? Is it a case of art imitating life, or life imitating art? If using controversy as a PR tool, then just how much does a person’s soul cost?

Did von Hagens use the corpses in sexual intercourse to create controversy or to portray an act which is as natural as eating and/or sleeping?

Perhaps we will never know the answer, only he can answer that question.

However one can speculate that von Hagens being an anatomist, prefers to have the corpses displaying all kinds of activities that a human could perform and sexual intercourse is after all one of the most common human activities in a person’s lifetime. It is how all animals reproduce and create the next generation.