Is Von Hagens' work a piece of art?

Résumé du document

The touring exhibition of Von Hagens attracted more than 25 million visitors around the world, raising controversies and questioning the status of his work. In Paris, the current exhibition "Our body" attracts a massive afflux of onlookers. Is Von Hagens' work a piece of art? Von Hagens invented in 1974 the technique of plastination, after his medical studies. Plastination is a process that consists of replacing the fat and the water naturally present in the body by silicone rubber in a vacuum-tight space. The greatest achievement of this technique is that a corpse can be preserved forever, remaining very supple and odourless. If the technique seems simple, but its application is very time-consuming, each body requiring more than a thousand hours of work.

Extraits

[...] In the exposition the corpses are said “given voluntarily to science” but the fact that they came from China, a State notorious for its violations against Human Rights, raises doubts on the voluntarism of these gifts. Finally, such exhibitions can lure only the morbid voyeurism of the spectators and in that way fail to bear any educative value. CCL: Now that I have presented you the Von Hagens' work, I would ask you two questions: ( Do you think that Von Hagens' work is art, anatomy or a scandal? ( Would you give your body to Von Hagens? [...]

[...] This technique serves the vision of Von Hagens who praise the actions' capacity of the human body. For example, he creates a football player's corpse with appearing muscles, in an illusion of movement. Process of artistic imitation and inscription in contemporary art Leonard de Vinci, Anatomic studies Leonard de Vinci dissected more than forty corpses in order to perfect his human body's knowledge. Michelangelo, Detail of Saint Bart, Sistine Chapel / The skin man Von Hagens clearly revives the Saint Barth theme, used by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel. [...]

[...] Is Von Hagens' work a piece of art? The touring exhibition of Von Hagens attracted more than 25 millions of visitors around the world, raising controversies and questioning the status of his work. In Paris, the current exhibition body” attracts a massive afflux of onlookers. Is Von Hagens' working a piece of art? I A work which fits the classical definition of art A work based on a technique Von Hagens invented in 1974 the technique of plastination, after his medical studies. [...]

[...] II A hybrid and controversial form of art and medicine Prevalence of medical goals in Von Hagens' work? have neither artistic background nor ambition. I simply wish to achieve a perfect presentation showing how vulnerable we really said Von Hagens. Rembrandt, The anatomy lesson In fact, he considers himself as an anatomist, character with which he plays by wearing the black hat, we saw in the video, which is the same as in the Rembrandt painting. He clearly wants to make it part of the long story of medical dissection. [...]