“To help you see what a body really looks like on the inside, this Exhibition uses real human bodies that have been preserved so they do not decay”. It is described to be “an incredible unveiling of the human body”, with an unprecedented pedagogic approach. For a full description, go see www.bodiestheexhibition.com

I’m here to discuss the explosive polemic around the exhibition. From Warsaw to Las Vegas, the exhibition is making the world tour, though being cancelled in some cities like Paris for ethical, spiritual and philosophical reasons.

Scholars treat this as a Science project, others as Art. But obviously it didn’t appeal to everyone. Here are some critics:

• The right of every human being (dead or alive, I guess) to his/her own body is not respected

• The exhibition of dead babies and the dissection of pregnant women are just gross and unbearable!

• There is no constructive artistic added value in using real bodies to depict situations that could have been painted, sculpted or moulded in silicon with the same attention to detail.

• Don’t even get me started on religious matters…

The problem is not really the pieces, but the story behind them. One can appreciate the Mona Lisa in all its lines, but if Leonardo de Vinci happened to have raped and molested the woman before compelling her to pose with a fake smile, well I’m not sure everyone would have been unanimous regarding the overexposure and the valuation of that painting.

I do have my own opinion about the financial wisdom of the instigators of such a controversial concept, but think your turn about the following questions for a moment:

• What do you value the most in Art: the piece or the story behind it?
• And from a scientific point of view, if experimentation on dead flesh for education purpose is so intolerable, how come we have so little scruple dissecting frogs at school?

Morgan Gray