A flayed man with his brain exposed sits contemplating a chessboard and an elderly spectator reaches out to suggest a move. Nearby, teenage boys respectfully gaze at a naked woman whose dissected belly holds a seven-month fetus. And a man split twice longitudinally sits astride a flayed horse-holding its brain in one hand, his own in the other. Is this a scene from the studio of notorious shark-pickling artist Damien Hurst? No, it’s the work of a professor of anatomy. Gunther von Hagens sees bringing people face to face with their own biology as an education in life-and liberating…
A body of knowledge
23 March 2002
