Rob @45 - "When people donate their bodies it is for the purposes of medical science not for some so-called artist to make an exhibition of."

Not so. There were 2 traveling exhibits using donated bodies - one in Vancouver BC, one in Seattle Wa - from two different groups - using real human bodies - skin and organs - donated to science. They were scientific exhibits, but one could also assert that they were artistic, creative renderings, among any number of other descriptors. That is, they weren't purely scientific exhibits, though they certainly could be used for that purpose.

The Vancouver exhibit - which I saw with my child (who was, and still is, very interested in science) - the bodies and organs are prepared using a technique called plastination, showing inner anatomical structures, and rendering the skin somewhat in appearance like dehydrated food you take camping, only over a much larger surface, of course, and very fibrous in appearance, long strands. Conveys the fibrous strength of the human body. The exhibition's developer is a German anatomist, Gunther von Hagens, who invented the plastination technique (to preserve bodies and body parts by removing water and fats) at the University of Heidelberg in the 1970's. The Canadian exhibit also included a section on the development of the human fetus, using real embryos and fetuses at various points of development, from donations that had spontaneously miscarried. (Acts of God as abortionist. Which circumvented objections to that issue.)

At which point, and back in Amerika, the controversy mostly surrounded the Seattle exhibit because some of the bodies had come from people who died in prison in China - and had not "given permission" in the sense that we give permission in the States, because there, if you go to prison, you automatically relinquish that right (and your family does too) should you die in prison.

The one that was in Seattle -
http://www.bodyworlds.com/en.html

The one that was in Vancouver BC
http://www.bodiestheexhibition.com/bodies.html

I had a friend who died on a liver list, and i recently read about a little boy who can't get on a heart transplant list without 1/2 million dollars down payment -- which is just to get on the list. In Amerika.

So it seems appropriate, from a certain perspective, and in the land claimed by virtue of European butchery of millions of Native Americans, that one could realistically and morally conceive of our nation, via a flag made of human skin, just like the Nazis did.

http://www.krasnow.net/early_int.html

Andy can have my skin if I die first.

The disgusting part of this whole manufactured uproar isn't the work... it's the hack writers trying to sensationalize it.

If anything this is really cool.

Is it art? Not really. But it is trippy.

Bull shit, if he uses black skin, he would be ripped apart

With todays standards... that would actualy pass for art.

And what is the comment?

That's the dumbest statement EVER.

By that "logic" if I slug you really really hard in the gut, I'm an artist.

What? You didn't get that my moving fist was an analog for today's rapid paced society and that the nauseous feeling you got was the underlying thoughts of the downtrodden members of society in a capitalist run economy.

I'm not sure the donors expected their bodies to be used this way, and that's frankly the only thing that bothers me about this.

and even if it is human skin-- someone had to do it I guess. Gimmicky at best. Is that what he really wants to be known for? Lame.

*yawn*

So tired of these attention seeking pieces of crap calling themselves artists.

Doesn't the practice of only using white people's skin take the universal sense and crush it into the ground, leaving only sensationalism?

This guy is a douchebag.

A belief? Are you denying it happened?

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/skin.html