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Dana Schutz, "Open Casket" 2016

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Hola que hace?

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Robert Mapplethorpe , Joe NYC, 1978

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1. “The Cycle of Life” will feature a plastinated man and woman displayed in mid-copulation. Artist: Gunther von Hagens

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1. “The Cycle of Life” will feature a plastinated man and woman displayed in mid-copulation. Artist: Gunther von Hagens

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The German anatomist Gunther von Hagens has stirred controversy and curiosity with his Body Worlds exhibition.

By now, people around the world have become used to the periodic provocations eminating from the plastinated human corpses displayed by Gunther von Hagens. But he may have outdone himself in a new Berlin exhibition. (Pics)

Despite their staid-sounding mission - allowing the public access to preserved human specimens for educational purposes - the Body Worlds anatomical exhibitions are no stranger to controversy. It's not too difficult to see why.

The skinless bodies, some of which have their muscle tissue pulled back to reveal even more, are not positioned to stand soberly in display cases - but rather, they run, jump, and play instruments. They're positioned in mid-motion, smiling or grimacing as appropriate.

The bodies are displayed in a variety of poses, some alone and some with others - like this juxtaposed couple in Los Angeles last year.

And beginning this week in Berlin, they can be seen "caught in the act" as well. The traveling exhibition called "The Cycle of Life" will feature a plastinated man and woman displayed in mid-copulation.

The coupling of death with sex made sense from both a thematic and biological standpoint, Body Worlds founder Gunther von Hagens said. "Death and sex are both taboo topics. I'm bringing them together. Death belongs to life," the controversial doctor told mass circulation tabloid Bild. " And without sex no life would exist!"

The exhibition opens at Berlin's Postbahnhof on Thursday, after running in Heidelberg since the beginning of the year. It includes over 200 "plastinated" human bodies at various life stages - from two weeks after conception to old age, including embryos and fetuses taken from historic anatomical collections. The exhibit also shows the effects of environment and lifestyle on the developing and aging human body.

This plastinated cadaver of a 36-week-old fetus was shown in Manchester, England in 2008.

"I want to show that maturation is a completely natural process, which, with a little bit of effort, we can help to shape. We should always keep an eye to the future," von Hagens said in a statement.

Body Worlds was last in the German capital eight years ago, drawing 1.3 million visitors. The world-traveling displays have been visited by more than 27 million people to date - and over 6 million in Germany alone - according to the Body Worlds Web site.

In a press release, von Hagens said, "the older I get, the more I realize that death is normal - and that life is the big exception. I hope that Body Worlds and 'The Cycle of Life' gives people the courage to strive to live every day healthily - their whole life long."

The plastination pioneer has been criticized in the past for the use of pregnant women and babies in his displays, which have been copied by other companies in recent years.

Controversial pregnant woman

Body Worlds claims that its exhibitions show only donated bodies from people who signed up for the process while they were alive and agreed to have their bodies used for the purposes of educating the public. But some think von Hagens has taken it too far.

In the Bild article, the unorthodox anatomist rebuffed criticism that the risqué pose of the two new figures amounts to desecration of the corpses, telling the newspaper that two-thirds of the male donors and one-third of the female donors agreed to the use of their bodies for the representation of sexual acts.

Bild reported that the preservation of the man and woman - who died in their 50s and did not know each other while alive - required 200 kilograms of silicon in a process taking over 4,000 hours of work.

The paper quoted von Hagens as saying the display "teaches the visitors more than any biology class, revolutionizing the study of anatomy. It has nothing to do with pornography and isn't intended to be sexually stimulating!"

An assistant stands in front of shelving with human skulls in the new workshop of Gunther von Hagens

The "plastinates" also wear a range of facial expressions.

...and animals. This plastinated reindeer was unveiled in London in late 2008.

Via Spiegel Online

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Controversial Body World's Exhibit Strikes Again

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The German anatomist Gunther von Hagens has stirred controversy and curiosity with his Body Worlds exhibition. By now, people around the world have become used to the periodic provocations eminating from the plastinated human corpses displayed by Gunther von Hagens. But he may have outdone himself in a new Berlin exhibition.

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Barack Obama, born 1961
Forty-fourth president, 2009-2017

Kehinde Wiley, born 1977
Oil on canvas, 2018

Barack Obama made history in 2009 by becoming the first African American president. The former Illinois state senator's election signaled a feeling of hope for the future even as the U.S. was undergoing its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. While working to improve the economy, Obama enacted the Affordable Care Act, extending health benefits to millions of previously uninsured Americans. Overseas, he oversaw the drawdown of American troops in the Middle East-a force reduction that was controversially replaced with an expansion of drone and aviation strikes. Though his mission to kill al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden was successful, his pledge to close the Guantanamo prison went unrealized.

Artist Kehinde Wiley is known for his vibrant, large-scale paintings of African Americans posing as famous figures from the history of Western art. This portrait does not include an underlying art historical reference, but some of the flowers in the background carry special meaning for Obama. The chrysanthemums, for example, reference the official flower of Chicago. The jasmine evokes Hawaii, where he spent the majority of his childhood, and the African blue lilies stand in for his late Kenyan father.

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President Barack Obama - Kehinde Wiley - Google Arts & Culture

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Barack Obama, born 1961Forty-fourth president, 2009-2017 Kehinde Wiley, born 1977Oil on canvas, 2018 Barack Obama made history in 2009 by becoming the first African American president. The former Illinois state senator's election signaled a feeling of hope for the future even as the U.S. was undergoing its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

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Norman Rockwell, Before the Shot, 1958

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Zombies,  2013, underrated

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김정기 Kim Jung Gi Sudden attack 통제구역 6 Drawing

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1/8

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Yoko Honda, untitled, 2016

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Thank you for helping Google by reporting content which may be in violation of our User Contributed Content Policy.

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Martin Blank, Demeter's Song 2014

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UP (screenwriters Bob Peterson & Pete Docter, Pixar)

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Favorite Pixar's Up scene ever - Ellie and Carl's relationship through time, Sad scene

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Marina Abromovic and Ulay, Mirror Soul,

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Sanders Steins, Static Red Impluse

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Saatchi Art is pleased to offer the drawing, "Static Red Impulse," by Sander Steins, available for purchase at $560 USD. Original Drawing: Paper on Marker, Graphite, Charcoal, Acrylic. Size is 16.1 H x 12.6 W x 0.1 in.

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Giovanni Bellini's half-length devotional paintings of the Madonna and Child enjoyed great popularity in Venice, and later in his career he employed a large workshop to meet the demand. Bellini's tender images appeal to the viewer's sentiments, the many variations of pose and motif serving to remind the worshiper of Christ's redemptive role. They typically feature a sweet, wistful Virgin who signals her awareness and acceptance of the preordained fate of her Son.

Here, Bellini's Madonna stands behind a veined marble parapet, in front of a cloth of honor brocaded with pomegranates to symbolize the Resurrection. The parapet recalls both Christ's tomb and the altar upon which his sacrifice is reenacted in the Eucharistic offering. This meaning accounts for Mary's determined display of her Child, whom she presents to the devout viewer as the living Host. The illusionistic cartellino affixed to the parapet and inscribed with Bellini's name attests both to his identity as an artist and to his own religious devotion.

Although the head of the Christ Child and the book are well preserved, other parts of the composition, especially the face of the Virgin, have suffered abrasion. A related version of this subject, until recently in the church of Santa Maria dell'Orto, Venice, differs in its details, most notably the absence of the book and the inclusion of Greek inscriptions on either side of the Madonna's head.

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The Madonna and Child - Giovanni Bellini - Google Arts & Culture

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Giovanni Bellini's half-length devotional paintings of the Madonna and Child enjoyed great popularity in Venice, and later in his career he employed a large workshop to meet the demand. Bellini's tender images appeal to the viewer's sentiments, the many variations of pose and motif serving to remind the worshiper of Christ's redemptive role.

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Jake and Dino’s Chapman, the Sum of all Evil, 2013

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5

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Annette Bellamy, Moving Mountains, 2017

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Goya, los capricos, 1797

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Jackson pollock

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Rembrandt, the abduction of ganymede, 1635

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The Book of Kells, 9th century

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Pharaoh Akhenaten

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Mark Ryden

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OVERRATED MONET BLEGH

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Monet began work in 1883 in the small village of Giverny down stream on the Seine from Paris. Then in 1893 he bought the land in front of his home and built a Japanese style garden in the space. Monet used a small stream that ran through his property to build a huge pond which he filled with water lilies and crossed with a humpbacked bridge. He lined the banks with willows and shrubbery and retired to this watery realm isolated from the outside world to create his final series, "The Water Lilies". He built a glasswalled studio on the side of the garden and set up a wheeled easel that he could freely roll around the room. There he created painting after painting of the changing images of the pond, its water lilies and the reflecting light at all hours of morning, day and evening. In different works of the series he included images of the willows on the shore, the humpback bridge and the evening sky. But he finally concentrated solely on the pond itself. He filled the entire surface of the work with an image of the pond, giving the viewer the strong impression of standing in the center of the pond. The brushstrokes and pigments depicting flowers and water differ considerably from early Impressionist techniques; at times they reach the passionate intensity of Expressionism in their evocation of the beauty of the water's surface. This work is one of the finest of these late "Water Lilies" paintings. (Source: Masterpieces of the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, 2009, cat. no.78)

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Water Lilies - Claude Monet - Google Arts & Culture

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Monet began work in 1883 in the small village of Giverny down stream on the Seine from Paris. Then in 1893 he bought the land in front of his home and built a Japanese style garden in the space.

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Edgar Degas's penetrating and sometimes disturbing depictions of late 19th-century Parisian society are as much innovative explorations of movement and pictorial space as they are portrayals of contemporary life. Degas was from a privileged background, born of a well-to-do family in Paris. After studying law briefly, he turned to art in 1855, attending the École...

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Jed Henry

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phish, flying hot dog