As soon as I saw the ad announcing that the “Bodies Exhibition” would be in Athens from February 7 to May 10, I knew I’d be among those lining up outside Technopolis, in Gazi, to see if the works were “real.” And if they were, what it all might mean.

The event that has caused a stir around the globe on its world tour was presented by Premier Exhibition Companies, a major provider of museum-quality touring exhibitions. Established in Atlanta in 1993, it is known for “Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition,” which has welcomed 18 million visitors worldwide. The company’s exhibitions contain real artifacts displayed in a compelling and story-based environment.

As I stood outside the museum door in Gazi, waiting to enter, to see what we call the human body in a new light, surrounding me were people chatting about how exciting the experience would be.
Entering, I stood in a vast room congested with curious people staring in awe at what was before them. It was like being at the zoo. Apparently, it couldn’t get more real than this: skinless dead people everywhere; labels above everything, describing each display, showing people how their bodies are built. It was something I had never seen, and, yes it was truly exciting. As I wandered through the people, observing each aspect of the human body, I heard mothers talking to their children as they led them through their educational examination of the body. Other people mocked what they saw; and still others asked, like me: “Is it really real?”

From room to room, everything was smartly displayed. There were clearly written descriptions of each “piece.” And supplementary – though not necessarily edifying – remarks, such as, “Rumor has it that when we yawn, it’s due to lack of oxygen to the brain. However, the truth is that scientists really do not know why people yawn.”

There was no yawning at this exhibition. Wandering through the exhibition, I had an up-close look at the skeletal, muscular, reproductive, respiratory, circulatory and other systems of the human body. Many of the whole-body specimens are set in athletic poses, allowing visitors to relate to familiar, expressive actions of the body. In addition, the authentic human specimens illustrate the damage caused to organs by over-eating and lack of exercise. A healthy lung is displayed next to a black lung destroyed by smoking in a shocking comparison more powerful than any textbook image.

Dr. Ray Glover, professor emeritus of anatomy and cell biology at the University of Michigan, and chief medical director for “Bodies: The Exhibition,” said in an interview that “The educational impact of this exhibition is immeasurable. For centuries, the medical community has learned about the inner workings of the human body through the study of real human bodies, and now, through ‘Bodies: The Exhibition,’ it’s possible for the public to gain an intimate knowledge as well.”

The exhibition in Gazi is not billed as art. But, having been a painter since I was a little girl and devoted to art, and given that the bodies are on display much as sculptures might be, I inevitably began to ask myself if the human body can be considered art. Or whether, for that matter, morbidity can. Some people think it can. Which makes me think we’ve come a long way since the Renaissance: the human body in its raw state is extremely morbid, more morbid that Salvador Dali’s work and it is now regularly on display for the public to see. While I’ve always been pretty open-minded about what can be considered art, today, when “art” has become a label for nearly everything, I think there are limits.

The scientist who developed the plastination process applied to bodies in exhibitions such as the one in Gazi is Dr. Gunther von Hagens, the German anatomist who used to work for Premier Exhibition Companies. The doctor started a trend in body displays with his “Body Worlds” exhibition in 1996. Von Hagens said he considered his works not only scientific, but artistic as well.

When the Guardian newspaper asked him what his goals were for the “Body Worlds” exhibition, he said, “I want to bring the life back to anatomy. I am making the dead lifeful again. This exhibition is a place where the dead and the living mix. Yes, some of the specimens are difficult to look at. To see a mutilated body is hard because we have fears about our own integrity. We have a deep-rooted anxiety about when we see the body opened up because in this way we have feelings about ourselves, but at the same time, many people who have seen the exhibition have discovered a new respect for their bodies. One girl I spoke to said she had tried to commit suicide twice, but after seeing the bodies in the exhibition she would never contemplate harming it again. It is edutainment.”

All the bodies that Von Hagens preserves have been donated, mostly by people who declared while living that they would like their bodies to be plastinated to advance human knowledge. They come from a body donation program that was begun in 1983 by von Hagens. The body donation program is now managed by the Institute for Plastination, established in Heidelberg, Germany, in 1993.

First the bodies are dissected, then their fat and skin is removed. Then the bodies are put into machines that replace human fluids with soft chemical polymers that preserve them and allow them to be manipulated to stand in different positions. Human bodies made plastic.

Von Hagens has had his critics. People have called him “Dr. Death” and “Dr. Frankenstein.” In the media, he has been compared him to Josef Mengele, the Nazi death camp doctor.

Critics have called his works exploitative, and complained that they cheapen life and death. They say it is inappropriate to cut up human bodies and “parade them” in different poses, to turn them into a spectacle.

Art critic Laura Cummings of The Observer said of the 1996 “Body Worlds” exhibition: “There is a sign for a butcher’s shop that you may well have seen – it features a cheeky chap in the traditional white hat and striped apron about to hack into a chunk of raw meat. He flashes a pair of sharpened cleavers and he grins from ear to ear, even though his own head could easily be next on the plate. For the butcher is not a man: he’s a pig in man’s clothing. And the meat on the slab is clearly meant to be pork. A killing joke, if you find it funny: the victim as perpetrator, serving up his own species as a hearty dish for dinner. But in its heartless and extremely tasteless humor, it is also a reminder that what you are about to buy was once a living creature. You could call it exactly what Günther von Hagens calls his travelling show of plastinated corpses: a bit of edutainment, intimations of mortality cooked up with knowing jokes.”

However, the criticism didn’t dented Hagens. “I don’t mind if you’re sensationalist in your article,” he said. “More people will come to see it if you are.”

So far, 8 million people worldwide have seen his exhibition.

And many of those who have seen it might agree with the friendly critic who called “Body Worlds” exhibition “a unique presentation of the human form” that offers the public an educational experience.

And some of them agree that it’s art as well as science. Wrote Laurence Liss in Art Matters magazine: “I can say, without fear of the words being a meaningless cliché, ‘Body Worlds’ is unlike any exhibit before … Just as the bodies (in the exhibit) blur the line between life and death, the exhibit as a whole blurs the line between science and art.”

We used to think of art as something pleasing to the eye. But exhibitions such as von Hagen’s suggest a willingness to extend the definition of “art” to cover anything the “artist” wants it to cover. Even “Bodies: The Exhibition” in Gazi, which does not have any claims to being art attached to it, suggests a peculiar fascination with the morbid. In my view, things have gotten out of hand.

At the exhibition, I asked numerous people for their opinion of what they were seeing. The most common replies were “disturbing” and “fascinating.” I asked my friend to weigh in: “It’s both educational and art, because everything is nicely displayed and the lighting plays its role well,” he said.

I’m willing to go as far as the organizers, and call it “educational.” Perhaps people should know how their bodies work, understand and perhaps appreciate their own life and what its value is. Because I have seen the exhibition, I can say I better understand how my body works. In that respect, this exhibition is much about life and awakens people to an awareness of their own bodily potential and needs. The specimens show the functions, strengths, and vulnerabilities of the human body. They show healthy and diseased organs and the effects of lifestyle choices. I saw the body as it truly is. I learned something no biology book can teach you. I discovered the truth of life, how “I” function, and what each part of me functions for. And instead of seeing illustrations, I saw it first-hand. When you look in a mirror, you only see your exterior. This exhibition makes you see your interior self. I discovered myself as a whole.

So this exhibition is an educational experience. But just because the bodies are displayed nicely in a museum setting, it doesn’t mean they can be called art. The creators are right to say this is about science, and is an educational experience like no other.

Any person might like to be considered a piece of art, but alive and beautiful, dignity intact; not dead and mutilated, organs on display. That’s science.