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'Doctor Death' brings his new show to the O2
Danny Brierley23.10.08
THE O2 today launches what it hopes will be its latest blockbuster - brought to you by "Dr Death".
Dr Gunther von Hagens, the German anatomist and showman, has brought more than 200 posed and partially-dissected corpses to Greenwich.
The world premiere of Body Worlds & The Mirror Of Time is the third instalment of the scientist's work.
The 63-year-old was called a ghoul when he showed off a skinned rider astride a flayed horse, and the preserved cutaway corpse of a pregnant woman at his first Body Worlds exhibition in London in 2002.
And he was pilloried by some when he performed a live, public autopsy for Channel 4 in Brick Lane.
But the Body Worlds franchise has made him an estimated £45million from 25 million worldwide visitors.
The O2 exhibition aims to show the lifecycle of humans. The pregnant woman - the wife of a friend of Dr von Hagens - will probably be there again, and there will be foetuses from anatomical exhibitions dating from early last century.
There are cross-section slices of the human body "which are very colourful and more for people who love art". The show will also include a giraffe and an ostrich.
Dr von Hagens says improvements in the plastination technique he uses have enabled him to arrange specimens which are "more dynamic and sporty, with a greater range of expression". There will be no children's bodies. Dr von Hagens insists he only exhibits people who have given informed consent, and even if parents were to donate a dead child, confronting the public with childhood mortality would be "difficult".
He said: "I feel very well treated in Britain. The British people have a fondness for, what is the word, eccentricity. And I think in some ways I am eccentric. I am the Robin Hood of anatomy."
He is unapologetic about the entertainment component of his work. "Of course, to bring people in and ignite their curiosity, their body interest and health consciousness, I have to be sensationalist, but that must never overshadow the educational aim."
The show's "Fast Forward Face Transformer" shows visitors the effects of smoking and obesity on ageing, demonstrated using a photograph of their own face.
The exhibition opens to the public tomorrow, priced from £12 for adults, with concessions available.
Reader views (1)
excellent exhibition from the very first speck of life to the largest of animals in a beautiful preserved state.
Not once did I feel uncomfortable even when looking at death straight in the face, in glorious detail! A great medical experience even for the whole family.
- Stuart Luck, Stanford-le-Hope Essex.
