Body worlds

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Body Worlds are traveling exhibitions of plastinated , predominantly human bodies that have existed since 1995 . The initiator of the exhibitions is the anatomist Gunther von Hagens . The exhibitions are controversial because of the exhibits.

history

Von Hagens first publicly showed plastinated exhibits in 1995 in Japan. The first body world exhibition in Europe took place from October 30, 1997 to March 1, 1999 in the State Museum for Technology and Work in Mannheim . In 2003 there were two different exhibitions for the first time, which were shown at different locations at the same time.

In January 2004, Der Spiegel magazine alleged that Gunther von Hagens had used the bodies of Chinese execution victims for his exhibits . However, the publisher of the magazine later issued a cease and desist declaration undertaking not to spread these claims any more. Hagens was able to obtain an injunction against Spiegel Online in spring 2005 because of the dissemination of the same allegation .

After the exhibition in Frankfurt, which took place from January 16 to June 13, 2004, Gunther von Hagens declared that he did not want to organize any further exhibitions in Germany. From January 10th to April 26th, 2009, however, his exhibition under the title Body Worlds & the Cycle of Life was held in Heidelberg. From May 2009 the exhibition was shown in Berlin. Eight Body Worlds exhibitions have now been shown around the world, each of which is dedicated to a particular focus. In The Cycle of Life, for example, the body is the topic in the course of its lifetime: how it emerges, matures and grows, its health, diseases, physiological climaxes and finally weakening - the spectrum thus extends from conception to old age.

In February 2005 Hagens has begun elephants to perform Plastination previously in Neunkirchen Zoo lived. The bodies of the deceased female elephants Samba and Chiana were brought to Heidelberg for plastination and exhibited from March 19 to June 20, 2010 in the zoo in Neunkirchen as part of the newly conceived body worlds of animals and then became part of the body worlds exhibitions as the world's largest plastinate .

Since 2009, von Hagens' wife, the doctor Angelina Whalley , has been named in the media as the curator of the exhibition.

Permanent exhibitions

Berlin

On February 18, 2015, the MeMu Menschen Museum with 20 bodies and up to 200 exhibits opened in Berlin in the base of the Berlin TV tower . The Mitte district had banned the permanent exhibition because the exhibition of the dead contradicted the Berlin Funeral Act. In December 2014, however, the Berlin Administrative Court ruled that no official approval was required for the exhibition. According to a decision by the Brandenburg Ministry of Education, school children in the state are not allowed to visit the exhibition or the Plastinarium in Guben as part of school events. In mid-December 2015, the Berlin-Brandenburg Higher Administrative Court ruled on appeal that the exhibition violated the provisions of the Funeral Act, according to which plastinates should be classified under the term “corpse”. The exhibition of the plastinates does not serve scientific purposes either. The Federal Administrative Court ruled that the museum therefore lacks the special permit required to operate and rejected objections to the non-approval of an inspection.

The district office ordered the exhibition to be closed at the end of 2016. Markings were then attached to the exhibits, which should allow tracing back to the individual donors. In addition, instead of Arts & Sciences Berlin GmbH, which is not an anatomical institute and therefore requires a permit for the exhibition of human specimens, the operator of the museum is now the Institute for Plastination in Heidelberg, run by Angelika Whalley , which is also the sponsor of the body donation program. In September 2017, the Berlin Administrative Court allowed plastinated bodies and body parts to be shown if the donor had a specific declaration of consent for the respective exhibit, which is why ten older full-body plastinates from thirteen exhibits have to be covered or removed. The museum did not want to follow this at first, there was a prohibition order, and finally the museum announced a temporary closure. The ten controversial exhibits are now covered with silver foil ( rescue blankets ). Behind it, life-size panels each show a photo of the plastinate. To compensate, animal preparations such as a horse that has been redecorated into a unicorn , a two-headed calf and a lion hunting antelope are shown in the exhibition.

Heidelberg

In September 2017, another permanent exhibition was opened in Heidelberg in the old indoor swimming pool , an Art Nouveau building, under the motto “Body Worlds - Anatomy of Happiness”. 16 full-body plastinates and around 120 small objects are shown here.

Exhibitions in German-speaking countries

Body Worlds Exhibition in Amsterdam 2014
  • Mannheim October 30, 1997 - March 1, 1998
  • Vienna April 30th - August 31st 1999
  • Basel September 14, 1999 - January 5, 2000
  • Cologne February 12 - July 31, 2000
  • Oberhausen August 5, 2000 - January 28, 2001
  • Berlin February 10 - September 2, 2001
  • Stuttgart March 11th - March 19th 2003
  • Munich February 22 - August 17, 2003
  • Hamburg August 30, 2003 - January 4, 2004
  • Frankfurt am Main January 16 - June 13, 2004
  • Heidelberg January 10th - April 26th, 2009
  • Berlin May 7th - August 30th 2009
  • Augsburg June 6th - September 13th 2009
  • Zurich September 11, 2009 - February 28, 2010
  • Cologne September 19, 2009 - March 21, 2010
  • Bremen February 5th - May 25th 2010
  • Offenbach am Main March 26th - August 29th 2010
  • Leipzig June 4th - August 29th 2010
  • Berlin April 27th - August 14th 2011
  • Basel August 26, 2011 - January 2, 2012
  • Ludwigsburg June 29th - September 30th 2012
  • Vienna March 13th - August 11th 2013
  • Rostock June 14th - September 1st 2013
  • Bochum August 30, 2013 - March 30, 2014
  • Dresden January 24th - May 4th 2014
  • Munich April 10 - May 31, 2014 and June 12 - October 5, 2014
  • Hamburg May 16 - October 15, 2014
  • Nuremberg October 24, 2014 - February 11, 2015
  • Linz February 20 - June 7, 2015
  • Mainz June 18, 2015 - February 5, 2016
  • Saarbrücken July 2nd - September 13th 2015
  • Ravensburg April 1st - July 3rd, 2016
  • Stuttgart November 30, 2016 - May 20, 2017
  • Graz June 2nd - September 10th 2017
  • Regensburg February 16 - May 13, 2018
  • Osnabrück May 9th - September 2nd 2018
  • Ulm February 1st - May 5th 2019
  • Gdansk March 12th - June 26th 2019
  • Freiburg May 17 - August 25, 2019
  • Kassel February 21 - September 6, 2020 (planned May 17, after temporary closure extended from March 13 due to the COVID-19 pandemic )
  • Lübeck June 22nd - September 3rd, 2020
  • Greiz June 27th - September 27th 2020

Body worlds of animals

  • Neunkirchen March 19 - June 20, 2010
  • Mannheim July 2nd - November 1st 2010
  • Vienna November 17, 2010 - April 4, 2011
  • Cologne April 15 - October 3, 2011
  • Frankfurt am Main October 15, 2011 - March 15, 2012
  • Gossau October 5, 2012 - January 13, 2013
  • Ludwigsburg June 19 - September 18, 2014
  • Bochum November 7, 2014 - February 25, 2015
  • Braunschweig January 16 - April 10, 2016
  • Ulm May 28 - September 22, 2019

Trivia

The film adaptation of the James Bond novel Casino Royale , which premiered on November 14, 2006, saw von Hagens' body world exhibition in Miami for the first time on the screen. In one scene you see plastinated bodies, and Gunther von Hagens makes a one-second appearance in which he depicts himself.

literature

  • Liselotte Hermes da Fonseca: Scientific transcendence of the body worlds. Abolition of the "restriction of freedom" by life, death and body . In: Wolf Gerhard Schmidt (ed.): Body Images in Art and Science Würzburg 2014, pp. 107-138.
  • Liselotte Hermes da Fonseca: "I want to finally be satisfied and happy in my bone life": eschatology of the body worlds . In: Dominik Groß, Brigitte Tag and Christoph Schweikardt (eds.): Who wants to live forever? Frankfurt, New York 2011, pp. 197-218.
  • Liselotte Hermes da Fonseca: La plastination, une technique d'incarnation des espoirs scientifiques . In: Annette Leibing et Virginie Tournay (eds.): Les technologies de l'espoir: La fabrique d'une histoire à accomplir . PUL-Presses de l'Université Laval, 2010.
  • Liselotte Hermes da Fonseca and Thomas Kliche (eds.): Seductive corpses - forbidden decay. “Body Worlds” as a key social event . Pabst Verlag, Lengerich et al., 2006.
  • Liselotte Hermes da Fonseca: wax figure - human - plastinate. About the communicability of seeing, naming and knowing . In: German quarterly journal for literary studies and intellectual history (1999), issue 1.
  • Kai Budde among others: Body Worlds. Insights into the human body . Catalog for the exhibition in the State Museum for Technology and Work (Mannheim) from October 30, 1997 to February 1, 1998, ed. from the State Museum and the Institute for Plastination in Heidelberg. Mannheim 1997, ISBN 3-9804930-3-2 (with numerous editions. Catalogs were mostly published for the following exhibitions).
  • Misia Sophia Doms: The exhibition “Body Worlds” and dealing with finite corporeality . In: Volkskunde in Rheinland-Pfalz 17/1 (2002), pp. 62–108.
  • Torsten Peuker and Christian Schulz: Who walks over corpses - Gunther von Hagens and his “body worlds” . Ch.links publishing house, Berlin 2004.
  • Th. Schärtl (ed.): Body Worlds or Body Searches? A philosophical-theological examination of Gunther von Hagens' exhibition . Münster 2011.
  • Angelina Whalley, Franz J. Wetz: The border crosser. Encounters with Gunther von Hagens . Arts and Sciences, Heidelberg 2005, ISBN 3-937256-01-6 .
  • Nina Kleinschmidt and Henri Wagner: Finally immortal? Gunther von Hagens - creator of the body worlds. Bastei Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 2000, ISBN 3-404-60493-8 .

Web links

Commons : Body Worlds  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Landgericht Berlin , decision of March 2005, Az. 27 O 181/05
  2. ↑ Dates preview of the Neunkirchen Zoo
  3. ↑ The cycle of life: body worlds exhibition in Berlin urbanite.net, August 17, 2009, accessed May 29, 2017.
  4. ^ Article on the opening of the Menschen Museum in the Berliner Zeitung. Retrieved February 19, 2015 .
  5. ↑ Eckart Roloff , Karin Henke-Wendt: Ingenious and in demand - and still scavenging for corpses? (Menschen Museum Berlin) In: Visit your doctor or pharmacist. A tour through Germany's museums for medicine and pharmacy. Volume 1, Northern Germany. S. Hirzel, Stuttgart 2015, pp. 25-28, ISBN 978-3-7776-2510-2 .
  6. ↑ Court Permits Body Worlds Museum in Berlin Süddeutsche.de, December 19, 2014, accessed on December 20, 2014.
  7. ↑ School classes are not allowed to visit “Body Worlds” in class. Berlin.de, February 24, 2015, accessed November 15, 2017 .
  8. ^ Court forbids von Hagens' Museum of People on Alex. Morgenpost.de, December 10, 2015, accessed on November 15, 2017 .
  9. ^ Gunther von Hagen's corpse museum before the end . FAZ.net, July 8, 2016, accessed July 8, 2016
  10. ↑ a b Everything for art: Of the dead and their consent . In: Legal Tribune Online . September 14, 2017. Retrieved September 28, 2017.
  11. ↑ MeMu has been adapted to the requirements of the Berlin Higher Administrative Court . Press release Menschen Museum from 29 August 2016 (PDF)
  12. ^ Annette Kögel: Controversial exhibition reopens - Menschen Museum wraps plastinates. In: Tagesspiegel.de. October 9, 2017. Retrieved November 15, 2017 .
  13. ^ Maria Neuendorff: People Museum now shows dead animals. In: MOZ.de. October 9, 2017. Retrieved November 15, 2017 .
  14. ↑ Fixed abode for “body worlds” . In: STN.de . September 27, 2017. Retrieved September 28, 2017.
  15. ↑ Body Worlds exhibition in Kassel extended until September 6th: reopening as soon as possible. In: Lokalo24.de. April 30, 2020, accessed August 24, 2020 .