Re: [scifinoir2] Body Art: Creations Made of Human Flesh, Blood Bones
And, even after the news reported on this (one station even going so far as to tell people going into the exhibit), people still went in. On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 5:41 PM, Mr. Worf hellomahog...@gmail.com wrote: Wow that's messed up. I remember hearing a story on NPR that there were several similar exhibits circling the global. Its the morbid curiosity thing I guess. On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 11:01 AM, Martin Baxter martinbaxt...@gmail.comwrote: It's like the Bodies exhibition that's here at the High in Atlanta. It ran here for two years straight before it left (scheduled to go for three months), and it's since returned, into its second year now, if memory serves. As adverted, it's a collection of cadavers from China. The Chinese Guv'mint, kind souls that they are, basically appropriated the bodies from morgues without any permissions from family members, some of whom were about to bury their loved ones. On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 7:08 AM, Mr. Worf hellomahog...@gmail.comwrote: Quite a while back, I saw an art exhibit in San Francisco that was done by a French artist that used cadavers as a medium. His work was possibly the most controversial in the world next to Mapplethorpe at the time. (the exhibit was a focus on controversial art.) Although his work was very similar to what the Nazis did during WW2. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, he has influenced other folks to do similar work. Its all extremely creepy. On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 3:21 AM, Martin Baxter martinbaxt...@gmail.comwrote: To quote LL Cool H, E... I don't think so. On Tue, Aug 24, 2010 at 5:03 PM, Mr. Worf hellomahog...@gmail.comwrote: Body Art: Creations Made of Human Flesh, Blood Boneshttp://feedproxy.google.com/%7Er/WebUrbanist/%7E3/myhFZu_FJc8/?utm_source=feedburnerutm_medium=email Posted: 23 Aug 2010 10:00 AM PDT [ By Steph http://weburbanist.com/steph in Graffiti Drawinghttp://weburbanist.com/category/graffiti/ , Urban Images http://weburbanist.com/category/images/. ] What could be more personal and human than a cast of your head – made from your own frozen blood? The human body has been used as a canvas for all sorts of art, but perhaps more interesting and rare is the use of human body parts as artistic media, from sculptures made of hair, bones and fingernail parings to plasticized corpses in dynamic poses. These 12 artists have made human body art that is often controversial and sometimes surprisingly poignant. Marc Quinn (images via: art news bloghttp://www.artnewsblog.com/2008/10/marc-quinns-gold-kate-moss-and-blood.htm ) If you’re going to do a self-portrait, why not go all out and make a sculpture out of your own frozen blood? That’s what sculptor Marc Quinn has done – every five years since 1991 – using a mold of his head and a whopping 9.5 pints of blood drawn over a period of five months. Quinn’s 2006 version of ‘Self’ was purchased by the UK’s National Portrait Gallery for over $465,000. Andrew Krasnow (images via: the independenthttp://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/body-art-literally-1690128.html ) It’s been called horrific and gruesome, but is Andrew Krasnow’s controversial skin art really a sensitive reflection on human cruelty? The artist creates flags, lampshades, boots and other everyday items from the skin of people who donated their bodies to medical sciencehttp://weburbanist.com/science. Krasnow says that each piece is a statement on America’s ethics. “The objective was to express my concerns about the war and that it would not be conducted in a way that was moral and ethical,” he said. “Since that question wasn’t permitted in a museum, the work became more complex, with all the inherent contradictions of what it means to be an American or, for that matter, to be human.” Gunther Von Hagens (images via: body worlds http://www.bodyworlds.com/en.html) Perhaps no artist using actual human flesh as his chosen medium has gained such renown as Gunther Von Hagens, the man behind the “Body Worlds” exhibition of plasticized human corpses. But for all the outcry regarding Von Hagens’ supposedly “disrespectful” usage of human bodies, there’s just as much fascination. Von Hagens invented plastination, the method of replacing water and fat in human tissue with certain plastics, preserving them for study. Francois Robert (images via: francois roberthttp://francoisrobertphotography.com/#/portfolio/fine_art/stop_the_violence ) Francois Robert’s fascination with human bones started with an unusual discoveryhttp://www.designobserver.com/observatory/entry.html?entry=12617: an articulated human skeleton hidden inside a presumably empty locker that he purchased. Realizing the potential for artistic expression, Robert traded in the wired skeleton for a disarticulated one so that he could arrange the parts into shapes and designs. Since then, he has
Re: [scifinoir2] Body Art: Creations Made of Human Flesh, Blood Bones
Instant denial or morbid curiosity. On Thu, Aug 26, 2010 at 3:52 AM, Martin Baxter martinbaxt...@gmail.comwrote: And, even after the news reported on this (one station even going so far as to tell people going into the exhibit), people still went in. On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 5:41 PM, Mr. Worf hellomahog...@gmail.com wrote: Wow that's messed up. I remember hearing a story on NPR that there were several similar exhibits circling the global. Its the morbid curiosity thing I guess. On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 11:01 AM, Martin Baxter martinbaxt...@gmail.comwrote: It's like the Bodies exhibition that's here at the High in Atlanta. It ran here for two years straight before it left (scheduled to go for three months), and it's since returned, into its second year now, if memory serves. As adverted, it's a collection of cadavers from China. The Chinese Guv'mint, kind souls that they are, basically appropriated the bodies from morgues without any permissions from family members, some of whom were about to bury their loved ones. On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 7:08 AM, Mr. Worf hellomahog...@gmail.comwrote: Quite a while back, I saw an art exhibit in San Francisco that was done by a French artist that used cadavers as a medium. His work was possibly the most controversial in the world next to Mapplethorpe at the time. (the exhibit was a focus on controversial art.) Although his work was very similar to what the Nazis did during WW2. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, he has influenced other folks to do similar work. Its all extremely creepy. On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 3:21 AM, Martin Baxter martinbaxt...@gmail.com wrote: To quote LL Cool H, E... I don't think so. On Tue, Aug 24, 2010 at 5:03 PM, Mr. Worf hellomahog...@gmail.comwrote: Body Art: Creations Made of Human Flesh, Blood Boneshttp://feedproxy.google.com/%7Er/WebUrbanist/%7E3/myhFZu_FJc8/?utm_source=feedburnerutm_medium=email Posted: 23 Aug 2010 10:00 AM PDT [ By Steph http://weburbanist.com/steph in Graffiti Drawinghttp://weburbanist.com/category/graffiti/ , Urban Images http://weburbanist.com/category/images/. ] What could be more personal and human than a cast of your head – made from your own frozen blood? The human body has been used as a canvas for all sorts of art, but perhaps more interesting and rare is the use of human body parts as artistic media, from sculptures made of hair, bones and fingernail parings to plasticized corpses in dynamic poses. These 12 artists have made human body art that is often controversial and sometimes surprisingly poignant. Marc Quinn (images via: art news bloghttp://www.artnewsblog.com/2008/10/marc-quinns-gold-kate-moss-and-blood.htm ) If you’re going to do a self-portrait, why not go all out and make a sculpture out of your own frozen blood? That’s what sculptor Marc Quinn has done – every five years since 1991 – using a mold of his head and a whopping 9.5 pints of blood drawn over a period of five months. Quinn’s 2006 version of ‘Self’ was purchased by the UK’s National Portrait Gallery for over $465,000. Andrew Krasnow (images via: the independenthttp://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/body-art-literally-1690128.html ) It’s been called horrific and gruesome, but is Andrew Krasnow’s controversial skin art really a sensitive reflection on human cruelty? The artist creates flags, lampshades, boots and other everyday items from the skin of people who donated their bodies to medical sciencehttp://weburbanist.com/science. Krasnow says that each piece is a statement on America’s ethics. “The objective was to express my concerns about the war and that it would not be conducted in a way that was moral and ethical,” he said. “Since that question wasn’t permitted in a museum, the work became more complex, with all the inherent contradictions of what it means to be an American or, for that matter, to be human.” Gunther Von Hagens (images via: body worlds http://www.bodyworlds.com/en.html) Perhaps no artist using actual human flesh as his chosen medium has gained such renown as Gunther Von Hagens, the man behind the “Body Worlds” exhibition of plasticized human corpses. But for all the outcry regarding Von Hagens’ supposedly “disrespectful” usage of human bodies, there’s just as much fascination. Von Hagens invented plastination, the method of replacing water and fat in human tissue with certain plastics, preserving them for study. Francois Robert (images via: francois roberthttp://francoisrobertphotography.com/#/portfolio/fine_art/stop_the_violence ) Francois Robert’s fascination with human bones started with an unusual discoveryhttp://www.designobserver.com/observatory/entry.html?entry=12617: an articulated human skeleton hidden inside a presumably empty locker that he purchased. Realizing the potential for artistic expression, Robert
Re: [scifinoir2] Body Art: Creations Made of Human Flesh, Blood Bones
To quote LL Cool H, E... I don't think so. On Tue, Aug 24, 2010 at 5:03 PM, Mr. Worf hellomahog...@gmail.com wrote: Body Art: Creations Made of Human Flesh, Blood Boneshttp://feedproxy.google.com/%7Er/WebUrbanist/%7E3/myhFZu_FJc8/?utm_source=feedburnerutm_medium=email Posted: 23 Aug 2010 10:00 AM PDT [ By Steph http://weburbanist.com/steph in Graffiti Drawinghttp://weburbanist.com/category/graffiti/ , Urban Images http://weburbanist.com/category/images/. ] What could be more personal and human than a cast of your head – made from your own frozen blood? The human body has been used as a canvas for all sorts of art, but perhaps more interesting and rare is the use of human body parts as artistic media, from sculptures made of hair, bones and fingernail parings to plasticized corpses in dynamic poses. These 12 artists have made human body art that is often controversial and sometimes surprisingly poignant. Marc Quinn (images via: art news bloghttp://www.artnewsblog.com/2008/10/marc-quinns-gold-kate-moss-and-blood.htm ) If you’re going to do a self-portrait, why not go all out and make a sculpture out of your own frozen blood? That’s what sculptor Marc Quinn has done – every five years since 1991 – using a mold of his head and a whopping 9.5 pints of blood drawn over a period of five months. Quinn’s 2006 version of ‘Self’ was purchased by the UK’s National Portrait Gallery for over $465,000. Andrew Krasnow (images via: the independenthttp://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/body-art-literally-1690128.html ) It’s been called horrific and gruesome, but is Andrew Krasnow’s controversial skin art really a sensitive reflection on human cruelty? The artist creates flags, lampshades, boots and other everyday items from the skin of people who donated their bodies to medical sciencehttp://weburbanist.com/science. Krasnow says that each piece is a statement on America’s ethics. “The objective was to express my concerns about the war and that it would not be conducted in a way that was moral and ethical,” he said. “Since that question wasn’t permitted in a museum, the work became more complex, with all the inherent contradictions of what it means to be an American or, for that matter, to be human.” Gunther Von Hagens (images via: body worlds http://www.bodyworlds.com/en.html) Perhaps no artist using actual human flesh as his chosen medium has gained such renown as Gunther Von Hagens, the man behind the “Body Worlds” exhibition of plasticized human corpses. But for all the outcry regarding Von Hagens’ supposedly “disrespectful” usage of human bodies, there’s just as much fascination. Von Hagens invented plastination, the method of replacing water and fat in human tissue with certain plastics, preserving them for study. Francois Robert (images via: francois roberthttp://francoisrobertphotography.com/#/portfolio/fine_art/stop_the_violence ) Francois Robert’s fascination with human bones started with an unusual discoveryhttp://www.designobserver.com/observatory/entry.html?entry=12617: an articulated human skeleton hidden inside a presumably empty locker that he purchased. Realizing the potential for artistic expression, Robert traded in the wired skeleton for a disarticulated one so that he could arrange the parts into shapes and designs. Since then, he has created a haunting photo series called ‘Stop the Violence’ that uses the stark-white bones on a black background to illuminate the inhumanity of war. Anthony-Noel Kelly (images via: anthony-noelkelly.com) British artist Anthony-Noel Kellyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony-Noel_Kelly followed in the footsteps of many artists before him, including Michelangelo, when he closely studied human body parts for his work. But unlike those artists, Kelly illegally smuggled human remains from the Royal College of Surgeons and used them to cast sculptures in plaster and silver paint. Kelly was found guilty of this unusual crime in 1998 and spend nine months in jail. The sculptures can still be seen on his website, anthony-noelkelly.com. Kai-hung Fung (images via: the daily mailhttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1208473/Real-parts-human-body-transferred-masterpieces-CT-scan.html ) CT scans are typically only interesting to health care practitioners and the patients whose bodies they portray on film, but artist Kai-hung Fung manipulates them into stunning artistic images. Lungs, arteries, vocal chords and ear canals are just a few of the body parts that Fung – a radiologist himself – has scanned into a computer, intensifying the color but otherwise not manipulating them in any way. Linda Jones (images via: wcax http://www.wcax.com/Global/story.asp?S=11409831) How would you feel if a relative of yours took bits of your hair, stitches from an injury, even catheters and other medical equipment and used it to build a creepy “family photo album?”
Re: [scifinoir2] Body Art: Creations Made of Human Flesh, Blood Bones
Quite a while back, I saw an art exhibit in San Francisco that was done by a French artist that used cadavers as a medium. His work was possibly the most controversial in the world next to Mapplethorpe at the time. (the exhibit was a focus on controversial art.) Although his work was very similar to what the Nazis did during WW2. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, he has influenced other folks to do similar work. Its all extremely creepy. On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 3:21 AM, Martin Baxter martinbaxt...@gmail.comwrote: To quote LL Cool H, E... I don't think so. On Tue, Aug 24, 2010 at 5:03 PM, Mr. Worf hellomahog...@gmail.com wrote: Body Art: Creations Made of Human Flesh, Blood Boneshttp://feedproxy.google.com/%7Er/WebUrbanist/%7E3/myhFZu_FJc8/?utm_source=feedburnerutm_medium=email Posted: 23 Aug 2010 10:00 AM PDT [ By Steph http://weburbanist.com/steph in Graffiti Drawinghttp://weburbanist.com/category/graffiti/ , Urban Images http://weburbanist.com/category/images/. ] What could be more personal and human than a cast of your head – made from your own frozen blood? The human body has been used as a canvas for all sorts of art, but perhaps more interesting and rare is the use of human body parts as artistic media, from sculptures made of hair, bones and fingernail parings to plasticized corpses in dynamic poses. These 12 artists have made human body art that is often controversial and sometimes surprisingly poignant. Marc Quinn (images via: art news bloghttp://www.artnewsblog.com/2008/10/marc-quinns-gold-kate-moss-and-blood.htm ) If you’re going to do a self-portrait, why not go all out and make a sculpture out of your own frozen blood? That’s what sculptor Marc Quinn has done – every five years since 1991 – using a mold of his head and a whopping 9.5 pints of blood drawn over a period of five months. Quinn’s 2006 version of ‘Self’ was purchased by the UK’s National Portrait Gallery for over $465,000. Andrew Krasnow (images via: the independenthttp://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/body-art-literally-1690128.html ) It’s been called horrific and gruesome, but is Andrew Krasnow’s controversial skin art really a sensitive reflection on human cruelty? The artist creates flags, lampshades, boots and other everyday items from the skin of people who donated their bodies to medical sciencehttp://weburbanist.com/science. Krasnow says that each piece is a statement on America’s ethics. “The objective was to express my concerns about the war and that it would not be conducted in a way that was moral and ethical,” he said. “Since that question wasn’t permitted in a museum, the work became more complex, with all the inherent contradictions of what it means to be an American or, for that matter, to be human.” Gunther Von Hagens (images via: body worlds http://www.bodyworlds.com/en.html) Perhaps no artist using actual human flesh as his chosen medium has gained such renown as Gunther Von Hagens, the man behind the “Body Worlds” exhibition of plasticized human corpses. But for all the outcry regarding Von Hagens’ supposedly “disrespectful” usage of human bodies, there’s just as much fascination. Von Hagens invented plastination, the method of replacing water and fat in human tissue with certain plastics, preserving them for study. Francois Robert (images via: francois roberthttp://francoisrobertphotography.com/#/portfolio/fine_art/stop_the_violence ) Francois Robert’s fascination with human bones started with an unusual discoveryhttp://www.designobserver.com/observatory/entry.html?entry=12617: an articulated human skeleton hidden inside a presumably empty locker that he purchased. Realizing the potential for artistic expression, Robert traded in the wired skeleton for a disarticulated one so that he could arrange the parts into shapes and designs. Since then, he has created a haunting photo series called ‘Stop the Violence’ that uses the stark-white bones on a black background to illuminate the inhumanity of war. Anthony-Noel Kelly (images via: anthony-noelkelly.com) British artist Anthony-Noel Kellyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony-Noel_Kelly followed in the footsteps of many artists before him, including Michelangelo, when he closely studied human body parts for his work. But unlike those artists, Kelly illegally smuggled human remains from the Royal College of Surgeons and used them to cast sculptures in plaster and silver paint. Kelly was found guilty of this unusual crime in 1998 and spend nine months in jail. The sculptures can still be seen on his website, anthony-noelkelly.com. Kai-hung Fung (images via: the daily mailhttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1208473/Real-parts-human-body-transferred-masterpieces-CT-scan.html ) CT scans are typically only interesting to health care practitioners and the patients whose bodies they portray on film, but artist
Re: [scifinoir2] Body Art: Creations Made of Human Flesh, Blood Bones
It's like the Bodies exhibition that's here at the High in Atlanta. It ran here for two years straight before it left (scheduled to go for three months), and it's since returned, into its second year now, if memory serves. As adverted, it's a collection of cadavers from China. The Chinese Guv'mint, kind souls that they are, basically appropriated the bodies from morgues without any permissions from family members, some of whom were about to bury their loved ones. On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 7:08 AM, Mr. Worf hellomahog...@gmail.com wrote: Quite a while back, I saw an art exhibit in San Francisco that was done by a French artist that used cadavers as a medium. His work was possibly the most controversial in the world next to Mapplethorpe at the time. (the exhibit was a focus on controversial art.) Although his work was very similar to what the Nazis did during WW2. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, he has influenced other folks to do similar work. Its all extremely creepy. On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 3:21 AM, Martin Baxter martinbaxt...@gmail.comwrote: To quote LL Cool H, E... I don't think so. On Tue, Aug 24, 2010 at 5:03 PM, Mr. Worf hellomahog...@gmail.comwrote: Body Art: Creations Made of Human Flesh, Blood Boneshttp://feedproxy.google.com/%7Er/WebUrbanist/%7E3/myhFZu_FJc8/?utm_source=feedburnerutm_medium=email Posted: 23 Aug 2010 10:00 AM PDT [ By Steph http://weburbanist.com/steph in Graffiti Drawinghttp://weburbanist.com/category/graffiti/ , Urban Images http://weburbanist.com/category/images/. ] What could be more personal and human than a cast of your head – made from your own frozen blood? The human body has been used as a canvas for all sorts of art, but perhaps more interesting and rare is the use of human body parts as artistic media, from sculptures made of hair, bones and fingernail parings to plasticized corpses in dynamic poses. These 12 artists have made human body art that is often controversial and sometimes surprisingly poignant. Marc Quinn (images via: art news bloghttp://www.artnewsblog.com/2008/10/marc-quinns-gold-kate-moss-and-blood.htm ) If you’re going to do a self-portrait, why not go all out and make a sculpture out of your own frozen blood? That’s what sculptor Marc Quinn has done – every five years since 1991 – using a mold of his head and a whopping 9.5 pints of blood drawn over a period of five months. Quinn’s 2006 version of ‘Self’ was purchased by the UK’s National Portrait Gallery for over $465,000. Andrew Krasnow (images via: the independenthttp://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/body-art-literally-1690128.html ) It’s been called horrific and gruesome, but is Andrew Krasnow’s controversial skin art really a sensitive reflection on human cruelty? The artist creates flags, lampshades, boots and other everyday items from the skin of people who donated their bodies to medical sciencehttp://weburbanist.com/science. Krasnow says that each piece is a statement on America’s ethics. “The objective was to express my concerns about the war and that it would not be conducted in a way that was moral and ethical,” he said. “Since that question wasn’t permitted in a museum, the work became more complex, with all the inherent contradictions of what it means to be an American or, for that matter, to be human.” Gunther Von Hagens (images via: body worlds http://www.bodyworlds.com/en.html) Perhaps no artist using actual human flesh as his chosen medium has gained such renown as Gunther Von Hagens, the man behind the “Body Worlds” exhibition of plasticized human corpses. But for all the outcry regarding Von Hagens’ supposedly “disrespectful” usage of human bodies, there’s just as much fascination. Von Hagens invented plastination, the method of replacing water and fat in human tissue with certain plastics, preserving them for study. Francois Robert (images via: francois roberthttp://francoisrobertphotography.com/#/portfolio/fine_art/stop_the_violence ) Francois Robert’s fascination with human bones started with an unusual discoveryhttp://www.designobserver.com/observatory/entry.html?entry=12617: an articulated human skeleton hidden inside a presumably empty locker that he purchased. Realizing the potential for artistic expression, Robert traded in the wired skeleton for a disarticulated one so that he could arrange the parts into shapes and designs. Since then, he has created a haunting photo series called ‘Stop the Violence’ that uses the stark-white bones on a black background to illuminate the inhumanity of war. Anthony-Noel Kelly (images via: anthony-noelkelly.com) British artist Anthony-Noel Kellyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony-Noel_Kelly followed in the footsteps of many artists before him, including Michelangelo, when he closely studied human body parts for his work. But unlike those artists, Kelly illegally smuggled human
Re: [scifinoir2] Body Art: Creations Made of Human Flesh, Blood Bones
Wow that's messed up. I remember hearing a story on NPR that there were several similar exhibits circling the global. Its the morbid curiosity thing I guess. On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 11:01 AM, Martin Baxter martinbaxt...@gmail.comwrote: It's like the Bodies exhibition that's here at the High in Atlanta. It ran here for two years straight before it left (scheduled to go for three months), and it's since returned, into its second year now, if memory serves. As adverted, it's a collection of cadavers from China. The Chinese Guv'mint, kind souls that they are, basically appropriated the bodies from morgues without any permissions from family members, some of whom were about to bury their loved ones. On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 7:08 AM, Mr. Worf hellomahog...@gmail.com wrote: Quite a while back, I saw an art exhibit in San Francisco that was done by a French artist that used cadavers as a medium. His work was possibly the most controversial in the world next to Mapplethorpe at the time. (the exhibit was a focus on controversial art.) Although his work was very similar to what the Nazis did during WW2. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, he has influenced other folks to do similar work. Its all extremely creepy. On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 3:21 AM, Martin Baxter martinbaxt...@gmail.comwrote: To quote LL Cool H, E... I don't think so. On Tue, Aug 24, 2010 at 5:03 PM, Mr. Worf hellomahog...@gmail.comwrote: Body Art: Creations Made of Human Flesh, Blood Boneshttp://feedproxy.google.com/%7Er/WebUrbanist/%7E3/myhFZu_FJc8/?utm_source=feedburnerutm_medium=email Posted: 23 Aug 2010 10:00 AM PDT [ By Steph http://weburbanist.com/steph in Graffiti Drawinghttp://weburbanist.com/category/graffiti/ , Urban Images http://weburbanist.com/category/images/. ] What could be more personal and human than a cast of your head – made from your own frozen blood? The human body has been used as a canvas for all sorts of art, but perhaps more interesting and rare is the use of human body parts as artistic media, from sculptures made of hair, bones and fingernail parings to plasticized corpses in dynamic poses. These 12 artists have made human body art that is often controversial and sometimes surprisingly poignant. Marc Quinn (images via: art news bloghttp://www.artnewsblog.com/2008/10/marc-quinns-gold-kate-moss-and-blood.htm ) If you’re going to do a self-portrait, why not go all out and make a sculpture out of your own frozen blood? That’s what sculptor Marc Quinn has done – every five years since 1991 – using a mold of his head and a whopping 9.5 pints of blood drawn over a period of five months. Quinn’s 2006 version of ‘Self’ was purchased by the UK’s National Portrait Gallery for over $465,000. Andrew Krasnow (images via: the independenthttp://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/body-art-literally-1690128.html ) It’s been called horrific and gruesome, but is Andrew Krasnow’s controversial skin art really a sensitive reflection on human cruelty? The artist creates flags, lampshades, boots and other everyday items from the skin of people who donated their bodies to medical sciencehttp://weburbanist.com/science. Krasnow says that each piece is a statement on America’s ethics. “The objective was to express my concerns about the war and that it would not be conducted in a way that was moral and ethical,” he said. “Since that question wasn’t permitted in a museum, the work became more complex, with all the inherent contradictions of what it means to be an American or, for that matter, to be human.” Gunther Von Hagens (images via: body worlds http://www.bodyworlds.com/en.html) Perhaps no artist using actual human flesh as his chosen medium has gained such renown as Gunther Von Hagens, the man behind the “Body Worlds” exhibition of plasticized human corpses. But for all the outcry regarding Von Hagens’ supposedly “disrespectful” usage of human bodies, there’s just as much fascination. Von Hagens invented plastination, the method of replacing water and fat in human tissue with certain plastics, preserving them for study. Francois Robert (images via: francois roberthttp://francoisrobertphotography.com/#/portfolio/fine_art/stop_the_violence ) Francois Robert’s fascination with human bones started with an unusual discoveryhttp://www.designobserver.com/observatory/entry.html?entry=12617: an articulated human skeleton hidden inside a presumably empty locker that he purchased. Realizing the potential for artistic expression, Robert traded in the wired skeleton for a disarticulated one so that he could arrange the parts into shapes and designs. Since then, he has created a haunting photo series called ‘Stop the Violence’ that uses the stark-white bones on a black background to illuminate the inhumanity of war. Anthony-Noel Kelly (images via: anthony-noelkelly.com) British artist
