It’s like a bear skin rug, but with a human. Artist Chrissy Conant made this self-portrait:

“Chrissy Skin Rug” represents my relationship to my parents. The rug is a silicone rubber cast of my bare skin. I position myself as a human rug on a wooden floor with an open mouth and eyes that gaze suggestively upward. Parental influences from childhood continue to suppress me, long after I have grown up and they have gone.

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The Nazis at Buchenwald concentration camp did it. And so did serial killer Ed Gein. Now, Andrew Krasnow is making sculptures and lampshades out of human skin, all in the name of art:

His works include human skin lampshades – a direct response to the belief that similar items made from the skin of Holocaust victims were found at Buchenwald concentration camp.

Using skins from white men who donated their bodies to medical science, he has created freak versions of mundane items including flags, boots and maps of America – in effect using skin like leather. His work, he says, is a commentary on human cruelty and America’s ethics and morality. [...]

Gallery owner Robert Devcic said Krasnow uses only white skin because much of the suffering in the Americas has been caused by white people. "He uses skin to make the point that suffering is universal," he said. "It is tanned using the same process that you’d use for an animal skin."

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