Body worlds: A look under the skin or death as a show?

Body worlds: A look under the skin or death as a show?

Gunther von Hagens, the dazzling inventor of the controversial “Body Worlds” exhibitions, will celebrate his 80th birthday on January 10, 2025. His iconic exhibitions with plastinated corpses have fascinated millions of visitors worldwide since 1996 and allow them to look deep under the skin. The exhibitions, which have attracted more than 50 million people, depict body parts and organs in action-packed scenes that stimulate interest in the human body. “People visit the exhibition primarily because of their interest in their own bodies, because nothing is closer to us,” von Hagens once said in an interview with the “Frankfurter Rundschau”. vienna.at is reported.

But his art also receives a lot of criticism. Many accuse him of promoting voyeurism and a commercial interest in death. A famous postmortem in London met with fierce resistance. Despite the controversy, von Hagens remains steadfast and sees his work as a way to make anatomy and science accessible to the general public. “A certain amount of voyeurism is inherent in every viewing of anatomical specimens,” he explains, justifying his work munzinger.de.

Von Hagens, born Gunther Gerhard Liebchen, grew up in a time and in a family that had a strong influence on him. After escaping with his mother from Russian troops in World War II and living in the GDR, where he spent political imprisonment in 1969, he found his way into medicine. His groundbreaking invention of plastination around 1977 revolutionized anatomy and took him from universities to global sensation. Today, his son Rurik von Hagens' business is running successfully, while he maintains respect for his art and science, even though he has been struggling with Parkinson's since 2008.