Death Becomes Her: Art Follows Death In Germany

The prize-winning artist Gregor Schneider has alway been fascinating by death, as are many artists. His sculpture “Hannelore Reuen” of a dead woman remains an international sensation. Now, he is going for an even more real angle: he is seeking an actual dying person to agree to die in a gallery as a form of art as people watch. Another artist took a variation on the approach — filming people shortly before and right after death as art. Modeling jobs are getting hard to come by but this is ridiculous.

Schneider insists that “The dying person would determine everything in advance, he would be the absolute center of attention . . . Everything will be done in consultation with the relatives, and the public will watch the death in an appropriately private atmosphere.”

Fellow German artists Gunther von Hagens is an “anatomist who uses a technique called plastination to , nicknamed Doctor Death, has been traveling the world with an exhibition of plastination to model actual corpses in various poses after being peeled of their skin. Click here. , showing genuine human bodies in living poses, playing chess or on horseback. In England, the Wellcome Collection features people shortly before and after death in captivating picture, click here.

For the full story on Gregor Schneider, here.