Thread: Art? Of corpse!

Lively crowd sees stiffs in exhibition at Seaport

BY ADAM NICHOLS
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER




The sight of a ballplayer in full throw, his body stripped of flesh and his internal organs on show, was too much for Keely Cofrin-Shaw.
"I am scared stiff of the entire thing," said the 16-year-old tourist from Amherst, Mass., at the opening of "Bodies ... The Exhibition" yesterday at the South Street Seaport. "To think these people were once alive and now they're in a museum. It freaks me out."

Still, Cofrin-Shaw was among hundreds who turned out to view the macabre show. And there wasn't a lot of screaming.

"It's not supposed to be a freak show, and I don't want people to be afraid," said the exhibition's medical director, Dr. Roy Glover. "The idea is to give people a greater understanding of their bodies."

The display includes 22 real bodies and more than 260 organs that have been gathered from a Chinese university. They are stripped down and posed to show the workings of muscles, nerves, tendons and organs.

They include bodies damaged by disease, lungs blackened by cigarette smoke and fetuses in different stages of development.

"I really didn't expect it to be so human," said Karen Callahan, 28, of Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, as she looked at embryos. "I expected it to be anatomical, but I am very impressed. I've seen stuff like this in books, but never in three dimensions. It's quite astonishing."

Nine-year-old Julia van Zwieten of Scarsdale called it "kind of cool."

"It's like being alive, but being able to look inside your own body," she added as she took in the exhibition with her sister Claire, 7. "My body's so skinny, I never realized how many things there were inside it."

Her mother Sharon, 43, said, "They are so interested in medical things, I didn't think twice about bringing them here. They love it. It's something they will learn from seeing, and that's worth the entrance fee," which is $18.50 for kids, $24.50. for adults.

For some, the lack of blood and gore was missed.

"It's just a little too sanitized," said Monica Nomberg, 69, a retired architect from the upper East Side. "It's hard to believe that it's real."


How'd they do that?


Preserving bodies parts is a delicate and complex art form.

Experts keep the specimens from rotting by applying a mild embalming fluid before dissecting them.

All the fluids in the bodies are then removed using a dehydrating chemical called acetone. The body is later put into a vacuum that removes the acetone before a type of rubber is injected into the human cells.

The body is eventually posed in the way in which it will be displayed, and then exposed to a chemical that hardens the rubber, creating the exhibit.

The preservation process takes about a month, although the dissecting can take much longer than that.

Adam Nichols

I think this is morally wrong.

Originally Posted by min0 lee

I think this is morally wrong.

Should I cancel my latest issue of 'Girls and Corpses' magazine?