Body Exhibit Causes Controversy In France

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Apr 21st 2009 at 9:18PM

The Body Worlds exhibits may be popular in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world but a similar exhibit has run into trouble in Paris. An exhibition on the human body called "Our Body" in Paris has been ordered to be shut down after a judge ruled that it is disrespectful of the dead. Two French human rights groups had filed a lawsuit with various complaints including the fact that the bodies were not displayed behind protective glass. There is also a concern about where the bodies were obtained. Organizers of similar exhibitions have been accused of using the cadavers of Chinese prisoners.

Judge Louis-Marie Raingeard has given Encore Productions, the exhibition's organizer, 24 hours to shut down the show which had been open since February and was scheduled to run through May 10. He also threatened a €20,000 fine for each additional day that the exhibit stays open. The exhibit has already been shown in Lyon and Marseille and the Paris exhibition had sold 200,000 tickets by the start of April.

Tags: body, exhibit, museum

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BlogHog Apr 21st 2009 11:22PM

Stop it now !
Their is nothing wrong with this.
The body is there but the soul has moved on.
I think it's great. If people want to see it, so be it.

Philpastaga Apr 24th 2009 8:35AM

BlogHog,

You are free to accept an exhibit with corpses from unknown chinese .. and when I say "unknown" more than concrete past experiences revealed that it could be chinese politic prisonners...or at least people unable to give a free consentment. Do families have given real agreement ? NO ! Organizers are unable to prove the true origin of the bodies !!!!!!!!!! Only that, is shocking !!!
Sorry but in France there is a law that prohibit any "business" with real corpses... even for culture.
First: may be it could be more useful FIRST to use them for transplantation. No ?
Second: is it necessary (outside playing with our dark instincts) to use real corpses ? we don't have enough technology to copy realty ?
Third : is it so difficult to built an exhibit (that could be interesting for so many reasons ..even cultural and scientific) without beeing able to demonstrate the origin of the corpses ?

Science and culture : YES . Business on doubts : NO

Willy Apr 22nd 2009 7:28AM

Too bad. This is one of the most thoughtful and well-conceived exhibits I've ever seen. I heard the state of Florida is considering similar measures.

just me Apr 22nd 2009 10:46AM

Yet another way we refuse to confront our own mortality. I think it's necessary to be able to understand the human body and these shows do demonstrate a vast amount of information that would somehow be less if it were done with dummies. I remember trying to watch a live autopsy on television several years ago--couldn't do it. I thought I wouldn't be able to go through the Bodies exhibit as well, but am glad I did.