Human Skin Art

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The fact that it's explicitly stated in the article that the donors donated their corpses for medical research and not for the art itself leaves me with doubt. However since I lack better knowledge I'll give the artist the benefit of doubt in which case I have no moral objections against the artform allthough I find it to be a bit of bad taste.

 

Since no one's been sued (yet), my take is that the releases the donors signed were vaguely worded enough to allow this. It would hardly be surprising if the releases weren't too specific, since no one can really be sure what type of medical research their body would be used for to begin with.

As to whether or not it's in bad taste, I understand intellectually why some people are upset about this, but I still don't get why it's such a big deal.

 

The Tanner! It was the 1st thing i thought of too... Now, for everyone who thinks it's disgusting to show human flesh as art, how many of you actually completed the Tanner quest and used the flesh Armor? These could be a poll....

 

You've summed up my feelings nicely. I've never bought into this whole thing about it being an artist's "job" or "responsibility" to make wild or outrageous statements or observations with their works. Where'd they get this "Job" from? More often than not, they either suck at the government nipple or take advantage of the wealthy by conning them into believing their crap is really something profound when it is, in fact, just plain freaking stupid.

It appears in this case that he obtained the skin for his work legally. To be honest, I'd never want my skin used in this way, which is another reason I'd never sign my donor card. But since he appears to have gotten it legally, no need to go after him on that score (though they should tighten the laws on the disposition of corpses that have been given to "science" -- this does not strike me as scientific research.

As for the content of this work, well, I've never been keen on the government regulating artwork -- while some common sense censorship is necessary in every society (keep Hugh Hefner and his girls off Sesame Street!) I wouldn't say that his work has crossed the line that makes censorship necessary (though again, a regulation requiring viewers of the exhibit to be over 12 years of age doesn't seem to be to be too obtrusive.) Forbidding him to do something like this would be a bad precedent.

But as Snook said:

Withholding funding from crap like this is not tantamount to censorship. If he can get rich off of pretentious art critics being a provocative little bastard then more power to him. I'm with Magister's thoughts:

as well as those or Aik:

and Iku-Turso

I wonder if Jewish groups, who would be the ones I would guess would be the most offended, have anything to say about this.

 

Y'know, it says in the article that he got the last piece of skin 20 years ago. Now, here in the UK around 20 years ago a lot of dead people were having parts of them removed without their family's permission and it was recently found that some bits have been in jars for years. Medical regulations have been tightened up a lot over the past 20 years to prevent this happening again, maybe the guy recieved the skin due to loosely worded donor forms

*This post was created while the poster was lacking caffiene. The poster takes no responsibility for any nonsense she may have typed...owduihfo wiof oweodw jfiw shark*

 

This also reminds me of a short story by Roald Dahl in which an famous artist makes a tattoo and the profits from his art are taken from the tattooed person's hide...

 

That's just wrong...

Can anyone else see the building that houses these 'works of art' being vandalised quite soon?

 

This is my only problem with it. I have no doubt that everything was "legal", but I'm also betting there were some shady "legal" dealings in there. My objection is to the use of bodies donated with the intent being medical research (regardless of the wording) instead going to art. I know if I donated my body to science, I would object to it being used like this, even if science didn't need it. Burn or bury me, don't make me a lamp.

LMAO! Actually, though, no. Not even on my evil rogue where I made the armor and everything. It just wasn't worth it. By the time you could finally get it, there was much better stuff.

 

skin pics
Here are pics of the pieces.

I don't have a problem with them, to each his own.

 

Well....in an absolutely horrible movie I was forced to watch recently, a similar discussion topic was raised. In Soylent Green, the product everyone eats turns out to be made from humans...the movie ends with Charleston Heston screaming, "Soylent Green is PEOPLE!!!!"

Anyway, your point is, we use leather from other animals a lot. It's just a bunch of cells....on that same token, we also eat a lot of meat from other animals....so why is it that eating other humans is so wrong?

 

Especially since it apparently taste like pork, and pork is delicious.

 

Thats why it used to be called "long pork".
On a related note(which is kinda On Topic), i was just recently on a cruise & one of the people we struck up conversations with was a tattoo artist. He mentioned that he had several clients that were going to have his tattoos(and the skin that they are on) preserved & given to him when they die!
He said that he would have no problem displaying them in his shop.
I'm not sure how i feel about that. It's just kinda . . . . hmmm.

 

Hm, I'm thinking of bacon and pork-rinds...Oink, oink.

...and now, for some strange reason Deliverance comes to mind..."Squeal piggy!"

*sigh* It's a sick sad world...