Face to face with a scene of weirdness and seemingly young, variously assembled rigor-mortised alien-like bodies which grin at you, bend, sit or poised to run, amongst potted green foliage plants and the bustling of curious onlookers. Some of the bodies waveringly hold their own flayed skins out for all to see, while one even rides a huge horse whilst carrying his own brain in one hand.
  Gone are the early days of the19th century body snatchers Burke and Hare, exhuming and killing for science and money; now with a culture of change, hundreds of people around the world bequeath themselves after death to be used in a patented Plastination process. So welcome to the Modern World of Professor Gunther von Hagen and his unique touring show of body Plastinations; at The Alantis Gallery in Brick Lane, London. Where over twenty studiously preserved human cadavers are worshipingly exhibited, trapped in a moment of time by a complex process through which the infusion of silicon rubber was forced through their dead bodies. Revealing to us the inner landscape beneath their once busied sensual flesh.
  One can ponder: body elasticity, resilience, how it all fits together and works as a unison or succumbs to disease and wear, through the art of anatomical precision of Gunther von Hagen’s team of many workers with their forceps and scalpels. This is science and art blended together - prostheses attached, muscles separated, genitalia hanging, heart opened. Centuries ago, artist Leonard da Vinci drew away beside autopsies and anatomical segmentations, amazed at the divine creation of mankind, recording his studies and findings to further bodily understanding, and for posterity.
  Prenatal development fills the last exhibition room. Foetuses in their minute stages of change, floating like little clouds in glass tubes; whilst an eight month pregnant mother is posed naked like a reclining life-class model, revealing her unborn child in her womb. Guiding us through the body this way is somewhat voyeuristic, if one considers that they too were once upon a time: physically accepting, evolving and involved within the dynamics of the passions, beauty, and industry. Now they are just specimens for the living to be exhibited and marvelled at.
  For me the Body World exhibition, with its classically styled presentation and educationally informative layouts, is not about deceased denatured humans, but more about life, love and the physicalities of being alive - a must be seen show.

Paul Bright

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