Ghouls Gallery

[khall64au]

Ghouls' gallery finds there's still life in human remains

By Andrew Jacobs in New York

November 19, 2005

The jaunty fellow with the conductor's baton waving in one hand stands on a pedestal seemingly lost in the music. But there are a few startlingly odd things about this tall, lithe gentleman: he is dead, his skin has been methodically stripped away and there is a pinkish void where his viscera are supposed to be. Besides a few supporting segments of muscle, bone and ligament, the man has been rendered into a web of white spindly nerves.

The man has become a ghoulish show-and-tell exemplar of the nervous system, part of a new exhibit that opens today in New York. The show, called "Bodies … the Exhibition," features the preserved remains of 22 people and 260 other specimens from China, including a set of conjoined foetuses, male genitalia, a pudgy woman vertically sliced into four segments and a sprinter whose flayed muscles fly around him.

Citing the Chinese Government's poor human rights record and the medical establishment's use of executed prisoners, medical ethicists and human rights advocates have questions. "I find this exhibit deeply problematic," said Sharon Hom, the executive director of the advocacy group Human Rights in China.

Arnie Geller, the president of Premier Exhibitions, the company that spent $US25 million ($34 million) to obtain the specimens from a Chinese university, insists the cadavers are those of the poor, unclaimed or unidentified. Although Mr Geller said he was not allowed to keep copies of documents, officials at Dalian University in northern China showed him papers attesting to their origin.

"I am certain that all these specimens were legally obtained," he said.

But Harry Wu, the executive director of the LaoGai Research Foundation, an organisation that documents abuses in China's penal system, said Dalian University had been previously implicated in the commercial use of executed prisoners.

The New York Times

http://www.smh.com.au/news/arts/ghouls-gal...2016986919.html

Personally, I find this unacceptable and in very poor taste. Even the poor, unclaimed and unidentified deserve a decent resting place. What kind of world turns dead "unfortunates" into artistic objects for the voyeuristic delight of art appreciation?

What's next?

[gbt71fa]

Ghouls' gallery finds there's still life in human remains

By Andrew Jacobs in New York

November 19, 2005

The jaunty fellow with the conductor's baton waving in one hand stands on a pedestal seemingly lost in the music. But there are a few startlingly odd things about this tall, lithe gentleman: he is dead, his skin has been methodically stripped away and there is a pinkish void where his viscera are supposed to be. Besides a few supporting segments of muscle, bone and ligament, the man has been rendered into a web of white spindly nerves.

The man has become a ghoulish show-and-tell exemplar of the nervous system, part of a new exhibit that opens today in New York. The show, called "Bodies … the Exhibition," features the preserved remains of 22 people and 260 other specimens from China, including a set of conjoined foetuses, male genitalia, a pudgy woman vertically sliced into four segments and a sprinter whose flayed muscles fly around him.

Citing the Chinese Government's poor human rights record and the medical establishment's use of executed prisoners, medical ethicists and human rights advocates have questions. "I find this exhibit deeply problematic," said Sharon Hom, the executive director of the advocacy group Human Rights in China.

Arnie Geller, the president of Premier Exhibitions, the company that spent $US25 million ($34 million) to obtain the specimens from a Chinese university, insists the cadavers are those of the poor, unclaimed or unidentified. Although Mr Geller said he was not allowed to keep copies of documents, officials at Dalian University in northern China showed him papers attesting to their origin.

"I am certain that all these specimens were legally obtained," he said.

But Harry Wu, the executive director of the LaoGai Research Foundation, an organisation that documents abuses in China's penal system, said Dalian University had been previously implicated in the commercial use of executed prisoners.

The New York Times

http://www.smh.com.au/news/arts/ghouls-gal...2016986919.html

Personally, I find this unacceptable and in very poor taste. Even the poor, unclaimed and unidentified deserve a decent resting place. What kind of world turns dead "unfortunates" into artistic objects for the voyeuristic delight of art appreciation?

What's next?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Ma'am, I was eating popcorn at the time-I had to stop eating for a whole minute!

[Thai Chi]

Ma'am, I was eating popcorn at the time-I had to stop eating for a whole minute!

Whilst dodging 122mm Rockets

[Boon Mee]

Well, we have Egyptian mummys on tour - what's next?