The article below refers to the project of artist Gregor Schneider where he plans to have someone dying, as part of an art show, for people to observe the diverse stages of a human death. The person on show would be a volunteer. Schneider claims that death is considered by society as an undignified event in a human life, but he wishes to transform it into a graceful and beautiful moment. Many art galleries and museums are refusing to show this work.
Original Article
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Dying to see Gregor Schneider's latest work? Don't worry - you could be in it
Roger Boyes in Berlin
The prizewinning artist Gregor Schneider, enfant terrible of the German cultural scene, is looking for a volunteer who is willing to die for his – that is, Mr Schneider’s – art.
He wants someone whose dying hours will be spent in an art gallery with the public admiring the way the light plays on the flesh of a person gasping for the last breath.
Politicians and curators are in a state of uproar about Mr Schneider’s plans. The 39-year-old artist has been concerned with death for much of his career. He gained critical acclaim for a sculpture, Hannelore Reuen, of a dead woman. He has been hatching his current idea since 1996, and now has a sympathetic pathologist and art collector to help to find a candidate who wants to become a work of art in the final days of his or her life.
“The dying person would determine everything in advance, he would be the absolute centre of attention,” said Mr Schneider. “Everything will be done in consultation with the relatives, and the public will watch the death in an appropriately private atmosphere.”
Death is commonly seen as the last taboo, but artists have been trying hard to demystify it. Gunther von Hagens, nicknamed Doctor Death, has been travelling the world with an exhibition of plastinated corpses, showing genuine human bodies in living poses, playing chess or on horseback. The Wellcome Collection in London has an exhibition of portraits of people pictured before and after death by two German photographers.
The Schneider project, however, seems to have gone too far. It is being compared with watching executions in the United States. The influential gallery owner Beatrix Kalwa spoke for many German curators who rule out the idea of giving space to Mr Schneider’s artistic endeavour. “Existential matters like death, birth or the act of reproduction do not belong in a museum,” she said. “There is a fundamental difference between portraying these acts in an art form, and showing them in actuality.”
The head of the German hospice foundation that provides care for the terminally ill, Eugen Brysch, said: “This is pure voyeurism and makes a mockery of those who are dying.” But Mr Schneider, who feigned his own death as part of an exhibition in Germany in 2000, argues that death is already undignified and that his aim is to restore its grace.
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I have very mixed feelings about this. To me, it's not art. It may have scientific, and even sociological value. I have seen loved ones die before my eyes and it is a tortuous and extremely distressing moment. I understand what the artist's idea may be. But to me, this is not the best way to convey it. This is too direct, and the shock value speaks louder than any message he may be intending to deliver.
Death is a private moment, and I don't see that it should be public or something to celebrate, or even dissect in an "artistic" way - perhaps that is of interest to medicine etc. Celebrating the life of someone who has passed is something entirely different.
Personally I would not visit this show...because I would not wish to validate it. But I would be curious. Every death is different.
We hide (and hide away from) death because we are scared of it. Because it reminds us of the fact that we will die too. Because it reshapes our lives constantly and we resist change. Because when someone we love dies, a part of our world and how we define it is gone...and sometimes it's impossible to start again.
I see no beauty in death...but I do not see it as undignified. I wanted to be there when my loved ones died. No matter how painful it was to think I would never speak to them or hold them or share with them again. It is an amazing thing though...the body seems so empty as life ebbs away, it's really terrifying to see. Also, it is in these times I am most aware that somewhere someone is also being born, and all the promise that holds.
Is this art to you? How do you feel about this artist's approach to death? Do you think the idea has any value? Do you think the actual physical embodiment chosen by the artist for this idea has any value? Would you go to this show? Why or why not?
Why is death such an undignified moment in Western culture? Is there grace and beauty in death?