Saturday, March 4th., an exhibition opened at the Atlanta Civic Center, entitled, BODIES The Exhibition. It will run into fall.

http://atlantaciviccenter.com/events/bodies.htm

This traveling exhibit opened in August, 2005, in Tampa, Florida, and has been making its way to various cities, throughout the United States. One other such, the Body Worlds exhibit, made its first appearance in the late nineties, in Japan.

BODIES The Exhibition now showing at the Atlanta Civic Center, a venue at which stage plays, operas, concerts, and other such entertainments are offered, displays preserved human remains, in what has been hyped as an exhibit of scientific value, as well as being mentioned as 'art', due to the poses in which many of the bodies are presented.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/08/0829_050829_human_bodies.html

'Out of respect for my fellow human beings whose remains are being presented for the viewing pleasure of the general public, I will NOT visit this exhibit. Out of respect, my friends...something human beings seem to have less and less of, today, for themselves, and each other...'
Jeannine Schenewerk

http://intouchwithjeannine.blogspot.com/2006/03/preserved-human-remains-as-art.html

http://www.intouchwithjeannine.com

Wow Jeannine, that is shocking. I'm with you on this one. If it comes to my area, I won't be visiting either.

If people don't realize the LIVE human body is the work of art, then I feel sorry for them. The human body, that has been separated from it's precious spirit, should be treated with respect and only on "display" at a funeral.
This exhibition is about the money.

This is not art. I t is pornography. Its appeal is not beauty, but curiosity. Those who cannot create art must create spectacle.

Through the Federal courts, American Indian tribes have established ownership of the bodies of their deceased which were previously displayed in museums and side shows. The remains have been returned to be buried with dignity.

The display of human remains for entertainment should be outlawed and any money collected should be awarded to the families of those on display.

smile

[ March 06, 2006, 03:04 PM: Message edited by: smilinize ]

Informed consent would be the issue in my book. Altho' I would never visit an exhibition such as this. It just encourages "gawking", which to me, is not ever something I would want to encourage. And here I thought the toilet one was disgusting......

How can a dead person be informed or give consent? I wonder about how informed families are and if they gave consent.

If so, why?

smile

Ladies, art, to me, should in some way, transport the viewer/listener, to some higher plane of experience. This exhibit, featuring the remains of human beings, even if hyped as having some educational, scientific value, panders to the morbidly curious, and has as its single point, shock value. Today, when it is possible to re-create, with such vivid realism, models of the human anatomy, for what possible reason, other than shock value, and lurid titillation, could be the purpose of making such use of our fellow human beings' remains?

http://www.intouchwithjeannine.com

Smile,

Point being they can't. And I truly doubt any family was informed...probably people who died without known family....But I guess we have no way of knowing that.

The article itself clearly stated these were bodies of John/Jane Does that no one was able to identify for the most part thus there would be no family to give or deny consent. I have another spin on this exhibit. To me although some may call it art, I find this spectacle reprehensible but then what does that say for the HUGE number of people viewing it? Are we Americans really ghouls? It would seem so, these are probably some of the same people gawking at an accident in hopes of seeing blood and gore. This will serve as just more ideas to fuel the insanity of the serial killers/torturers running amuck in our society.

This is an exibit that I would fine personally repulsive and would not want to view. I guess art is in the eye of the beholder. This beholder says "no thanks" to body part art.