Is it Art?
 

These are just some shots from the Body Worlds Art Exhibition put on by Professor Gunther von Hagens. It is made up of over 200 human remains which have been gone through a process known as "plastination" and turned into art. Any thoughts?

another one

"Is it art?"

No, it isn't.

Glad I could clear that up for you. If you need help with anything else, let me know.

Are (were) these Real people?, Were they consulted?, are their families aware that they have been skinned, stuffed and mounted?

What about their lives? did they go to school? strive for education, aspire to new heights, dream of experience, share the love of another, simply to be turned into something without name? Something to be gawped at, bathed in anomicity their former lives and dreams ultimately turned into a rather tasteless bit of furniture?

I don't know why, but this strikes me as sick. I have little understanding in why people would like to wrap themselves in dead animals, let alone stare at dead people.

I suppose I'm wrong, but I am begining to think of "art" as something made solely to extend the boundries of tastelessness.

as the man said, "I don't know much about art, but I know what I hate"

Datalas.

--

I'm going to go for a bit of a lie down....

Is it art? I say yes, regardless of the fact that I don't care for it.

Remember the elephant crap picture of the Virgin Mary in NYC? Now THAT was cool.

I have visited it in Austria
 

Yes, yes and yes. Those people had explicitly donnated their body to become part of the exhibition.

The teaching power of those models is increadible. All the important little details are preserved. For once I could see from my own eyes, just how those human anatomy panes we all learned from realy are precise. In short : we aren't pastel-colored inside. And those nerves really are there, so you better be careful next time you decide to hurt yourself.

The exposition was about learning anatomy the way only med students used to be allowed to. It was also about our attitude towards the human body. Also part of the exhibition was the expression on people's faces. Grave, moved and thoughfull was the base line, though their scientific curiosity was omnipresent, for it had drew them to the exhibit in the first place. Finaly, a deep respect for our physicality and mortality filled the place. It simply was impossible to be unaffected.

It is unfortunate it is here being presented as an art show. It wasn't. This was the work of a skillfull surgeon and a teacher. One or two pieces were made with artfull intent, such as the chess master pictured today. I aswell found those out of place and unnecessary.

The are more picture and the Dr. Von Hagens' vision statament at
http://www.koerperwelten.com/index_en.htm

As contoversial as this exhibit is, it pales in comparison to the appalling true story recounted in Give Me My Father's Body.

The American Museum of Natural History in New York City first displayed live humans in 1897, and continued to display their bones after death, eventually returning the remains to the Eskimo clan in 1993.

It also bring to mind Egyptian mummies.
 

While most of Egypt's royal mummies now lie on display in the Egyptian Museum, Tutankhamen's body remains where Carter found it -- safe in the sarcophagus in the tomb where Tut was buried 3,300 years ago. If you're interested in the story.

As a medical, or scientific experiment in order to allow people with a presumably invaluable insight into the working of the human anatomy I can almost see a reason for it,

although as your (gmarceau) post indicated that they were very similar to a model ("just how those human anatomy panes we all learned from realy are precise") and I begin to question the need to do it again (if at all)

It does however answer the other question. "Is it art?", well no, from what you said it was a teaching aid. Although I dread to think how my parents would react to my body being used in a similar way.

I also questio whether the desire was to produce something usefull or Art, the medical aspect would tend to indicate the former, where as the positioning of the bodies would indicate otherwise....

Datalas.

ps: as always the only guarantee I can make about my spelling is that it will be wrong, I blame my skoolink :)

--

Anyhow, time to do something a little more pleasent (to my mind)

Yes. The way I understand it, Dr. von Hagens is an artist at heart, turned surgeon, who saw in this his last chance of doing something artsy - but shouldn't have.

Still, most of the bodies are simply in natural poses. This is how the exhibit can reach at you philosophicaly - you get to reconize yourself in the bodies.

The thing people don't understand is the art is in the idea, not in the artwork. Doesn't mean there isn't a pile of shit out there, like that bloody empty room.

Personally i don't find anythign 'sick' about it, its facinating.

The church still seems to think they have a monopoly on death, fuck em, its good stuff, and definately of educational and artisic value.

A photojournalist mag i sometiems buy called colours last issue was on volenteers, for the international year of the volenteer (UN). One of them was this guy, facinating read.

YES ! Someone who agrees with me at long last :-) I have always said that art is whatever the artist feels is art - art is in the eye of the artist if you like. I think some of my code (software) is perfectly artistic - someone else thinks it's a pile of gobbeldegook (very technical word that), but it's still art because I say it's art.

I agree, what is under our skin is something that not many people get to see, why shouldn't we have a look.

Here in New Zealand, our "national museum" - Te Papa (Maori for "Our Place") once exhibited an artistic work of a statue of the "Virgin Mary" inside of a condom http://www.google.com/search?q=virgi...nside+a+condom gives some articles (highlighting sections of the church (catholics ??) stance on contraception, abortion, that kind of tihng) - you should have seen the church react ! I like your sentiment - fuck em, it's an artistic work it has a right to be there.

Well, you don't have a word if everybody makes up their own definition of it. Words assumes a certain common experience which is called in the discussion when somebody uses one of them.

Not to stay at rest, I'll offert a substitute : art is planes of communication intermingled with beauty and/or craftiness. The typical artful experience is : I'll stay longer since it's pretty, meanwhile the artist is happy I get I better chance at thinking over its meaning.

Mmmm, theoretically I guess that's right, a word implies a common meaning between the parties. Realistically that doesn't always work, especially with subjective words like "art", everybody has a slightly different definition of the word.

Ok, but you have used more of those subjective words to define a subjective word so we are not much better off. What is "beauty" or "craftiness" or "pretty".

I feel I am crafty writing a piece of code, if you are a more experienced programmer than I then you might see the code as obvious and not crafty at all. Therefore, am I being crafty because I think I am being crafty, or am I not being crafty because you see my code as obvious ?

What is "exploit"?

just...don't.

For it to be art, does it have to be pretty? Does it have to do something? What is the criteria that defines art?

it's personal preference, that's the entire point. to me, art has to either showcase a particular talent, or make one think. it has to have some sort of profound meaning if it is going to be the latter. but that isn't how it has to be for others.

yes, there is a dictionary definition for art. but art, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

and the artist. if you consider yourself an artist because you paint a picture, so be it. do others have to consider it art? no.

am i particularly talented artist when it comes to brush strokes and lighting and shade with paint? hell no. but i still consider SOME of my paintings "art".

it's all in who looks at it, and who gets what from it.

like i said, it's like beauty. do i think i'm beautiful? no.

but i'm willing to bet there are people on the planet who will disagree with me. and those who will agree with me.

it's all personal preference.

Well, that's the wildcard reply at every game of "let's define stuff better". In particular, it can be asked over and over ad noseum. But if you realize that the repeated asking eventualy has to stop at a sufficient common shared experience, will I play along.

In case you ask where the tower of definitions over definition starts : it start at the good old finger pointing, as in 'this my kid, is a rock' (and then baby attempts to repeat and churn out : 'sock?' :) )

So, back to the definition game : 'beauty' ~ 'pretty', pleasant to look at, and 'crafty', is both beautiful and difficult (by general consensus).

Pretty much every single definition has a certain level of fuzzyness. It turns out its realy fun to look for grey zone and see how the most black&white categories gradualy break. Where does my tummy stops and my leg starts? When does something turns from innanimate to alive? When does flurting turns into cheating? When does a group of people can be considered as having a gouvernment? What about Afganistan in December, what about Argentina today?

Interestingly enough, you often discover novelties by poundering at the grey zone. For instance, dissecting the moment of transition between water and ice, we discovered super-cooled fluids.

dham - uncalled for


This is the thing. While what art is is subjective to the viewer, it is representaiton of an idea that is key, that is modern art.

Ahh but this was my point. With words like art we cannot whittle a definition down to a single common shared experience, it is impossible, always there will be somebody who our definition does not fit. And for this reason the best we can do is define art as being - things (pictures, sculptures, code - even just thought is good) an artist produces. And we can define the artist recursively as a person who produces art, thus defining anybody who creates anything as an artist, and everything produced as art - at least to somebody.

Tidy.

Very simple, really. If I like it, it's art. If I don't like it, it isn't. And that goes for everyone. I think "art" is too personal to be defined.

Now, I must go and enjoy this excellent (and highly artistic) cup of tea.

Now, I'm late to this discussion but of course feel I must weigh in...I'm glad that gmarceau actually saw this- that give us a better understanding of the images.

What seems to be a current through most of the definitions of art presented is the Western European based cultural tradition of art and aesthetics. This field of inquiry and practice has resulted in the works of Giotto, Michaelangelo, Goya, Van Gogh, O'Keeffe, Duchamp, and our friend with the glowing bunny- Gac.

What about Balinese masks? What about that Taiwanese ghost lantern? What about the caves of Lascaux? It that art? I see it in art museums and text books. The makers dont' use that word or concept. It is or was part of life. part of dynamic culture. And we've done our best to mold and understand these phenomema through the label- art. Its made for some messy, disrespectful and just plain wrong presentation, in museum or gallery settings. There needs to be the recognition of context. In this case its the context of medical understanding- in the western clinical sense and all of the ethical considerations surrounding that.

Art in the home
 

My new puppy has been leaving his art all over my rugs.

He is the world's first intestinal sculptor canine.

Expect to see his creations on sale on Ebay soon!

Brian "I'll be rich"

By that reckoning, I made some art last night. Unfortunately, it was lost down the toilet... :)

"intestinal sculptor" - that cracked me up :)

This topic just gets bigger and bigger. Maybe it's that art is one of those undefinable words, like love, that is undefinable because we all come to it through different perspectives. Because the words contain so many intangibles that it's hard to understand what it is.

For what it's worth I know I participated in this with the room image, and surely there are a lot more such images we'll come across, and I love them all and the debate that they bring about. But I feel like we have to have a pretty broad definition.

I would love to look at these bodies from an artists' perspective. Good art can give us a fresh or different perspective, and I can't imagine looking at these and NOT getting a fresh perspective - above and beyond just the anatomy lesson involved.

On the other hand, you get a similarly fresh perspective looking at porn, or car accident photos, or pictures of bread with mice baked into it, so I'll just shut up and let y'all return to the discussion at hand.

It all just goes to show how difficult the definition is...

not all that is beautiful is art
and not all that is art, is beautiful

Yes, I am an art geek.
I'm fascinated by the human urge to create, represent and understand which results in making and or organizing things in the world. The desire to make something...special. I'm reading this book by Ellen Dissanayake (1992) called "Homo Aestheticus" (insert bawdy remarks here) - she argues that art making is central to human evolutionary adaptation - "art helps people grasp and reinforce what is important to their cognitive world"- often pretty, sometimes not. What reinforces some may not others.

Or is it anatomical education?
 

A controversial exhibition of human corpses and body parts is "hugely educational" and "utterly fascinating", according to a European Parliament member who has seen it.

Body Worlds, which features 175 body parts and 25 corpses, has been described as "shameful" and "ghoulish" by two Conservative MPs at Westminster.

Art is whatever you can get away with.

I really like this definition...it still recognizes some
of the traditional things that have seperated art
from non-art while also being flexible.

So does "Art is stuff." :)

I dunno, "Art is what you can get away with" at least has the hope of deffering to established "experts" and recognized authorities in the way "art is stuff" doesn't....

"Art"
 

I've always been fascinated with art that sells. I've been to art auctions before (and spent too much money sometimes...mmmmm....auctionilicious) and there has almost always been a couple of pieces that I've hated that go for way more than I would have expected. Generally, this is as a result of the piece being "investment art," that is, art that is from an up and coming painter/sculptor/whatever that will be worth lots more in the near future. The thing that has always fascinated me by these pieces is that the art seems to be in the selling of the image (of the creator) rather than the artistic process/end result. Creative whoring? I'm not sure, but I'm still impressed.

There's a great Richard Feyman quote on money and art, after someone bought some drawings he made,

What I got out of that story was something still very new to me: I understood at last what art is really for, at least in certain respects. It gives somebody, individually, pleasure. You can make something that somebody likes so much that they're depressed, or they're happy, on account of that damn thing you made! In science, it's sort of general and large: You don't know the individuals who have appreciated it directly.
I understood that to sell a drawing is not to make money, but to be sure that it's in the home of someone who really wants it; someone who would feel bad if they didn't have it. This was interesting.
--Richard Feynman, "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!"

It kind of goes against your idea of investment art, actually, but it's still a neat thought.

More pics from the U.K. exhibit of Body Worlds
 

http://www.pixunlimited.co.uk/sys-im...odyworlds1.jpg

Click on the pic to see a gallery of new images.

Yes, being under a tombstone is so much better...

I think EPS was being facetious.

There is no "being" under a tombstone ... only a rotting, watersoaked, maggot ridden, decomposing corpse.

Incineration is cleaner alternative, perhaps.

I think it is quite sound thinking by these people, while alive and contemplating the future existence of their bodies, to consent to the "preservation" of their body parts for such an educational exhibit.

After living organ donation, and gifting of body parts for anatomical research, a donation of a corpse to an educational exhibit is just another way of making a contribution to humanity.

It's not for everybody, but there is nothing wrong with their choice.

there is not much being under a tombstone either. most people are not buried directly below tombstones! ooh! ah. ahem.

besides, when you're dead, you're dead. or so i look at it. so even if you're under a tombstone, your eyes can't see, your fingers can't feel, and your brain can't think it sucks. as for your spirit, if you have a spiritual side...then you're elsewhere anyway, right?