Von Hagens, Body Worlds exhibition anatomist, dies

German anatomist Gunther von Hagens, who created both admiration and disgust around the world with his Body Worlds exhibition of preserved human corpses, died at the age of 81.

Von Hagens’ family and the Plastination Institute he founded said he died Friday.

No further details were provided in their statement released Monday.

Von Hagens announced in 2010 that he was living with Parkinson’s disease.

Von Hagens straddled the fine line between science, entertainment and commerce with his traveling exhibitions as well as headline-grabbing acts such as public autopsies.

The basis for von Hagens’ work was the process of plastination, in which body fluids are replaced with liquid plastic that then hardens.

This technique, which he began developing in the 1970s, prevented decomposition, left tissues intact and allowed him to display preserved corpses and internal organs.

The resulting exhibition, Body Worlds, was first exhibited in Japan in 1995.

Two years later, the collection of partially skinless corpses went on display in von Hagens’ hometown, overcoming an attempt by local church leaders to block the unveiling on the grounds that it was sacrilege.

Von Hagens said it helps viewers understand how their bodies work.

Regarding his work, von Hagens said that the anatomist “in his daily work had to reject people’s taboos and beliefs about death and the dead.”

“I am touching a taboo here, and that is our body, and nothing can be as close to us as our body,” he said.

The corpses of people who agreed to donate their bodies for plastination were used in the demonstrations.

Critics argued that von Hagens bordered on sensationalism, with his works including a corpse riding a plastinated horse and a pregnant woman with an eight-month-old fetus inside.

The Rev. Ernst Pulsfort, spiritual rector of the Berlin Catholic Academy, said when the show first opened in the German capital in 2001 that Von Hagens “played with the corpses as a child plays with dolls.”

He argued that this appealed to “the public’s desire for sensation”.

At the Body Worlds show in London in 2002, the anatomist, always wearing his trademark black fedora, performed the UK’s first public autopsy in 170 years in front of a crowd of hundreds, defying government warnings that it might be illegal.

Von Hagens declared it “a great success”.

Dr Michael Wilkes, the British Medical Association’s ethics officer, said it was “insulting and disrespectful”.

Body Worlds exhibitions have also been shown in many cities in the United States after making their country debut in Los Angeles in 2004.

Von Hagens’ Plastinarium, where corpses were prepared, opened in the town of Guben in eastern Germany in 2006.

The anatomist was born Gunther Liebchen on January 10, 1945, in what is now western Poland.

He attended medical school in Jena, East Germany, but increasingly questioned the communist system and made an unsuccessful attempt to escape to the West.

He was detained before West Germany bought his freedom in 1970; this was common practice at the time.

He continued his medical studies at the University of Luebeck and in the 1970s began working at the institute of pathology and anatomy at the University of Heidelberg.

He married former classmate Cornelia von Hagens and took her surname.

His second wife, Angelina Whalley, heads the Heidelberg-based Plastination Institute and curates its exhibitions. He had three children from his first marriage.

In a statement on Monday, it was stated that it was von Hagens’ wish that his body be made suitable for plastination and that “his family will respect and fulfill this wish.”