The Body Eclectic

A body of work on display at the Mellwood Arts & Entertainment Center in Louisville is just that: a body of work.

“Bodies Human: Anatomy in Motion” — an exhibition of more than 100 preserved human specimens, including 11 whole bodies, individual organs and transparent body slices (vertical and horizontal) — offers an opportunity to delve into the world of gross anatomy by looking at and inside the human body for a better understanding of its complex and elaborate anatomy and physiology.

“Bodies Human is education, health, science and art, all in one exciting exhibit,” said exhibit director Chester Lee Hockersmith. “Millions of visitors throughout the world have seen similar exhibits in major cities and now, for the first time, Kentuckians will have the same opportunity.”

The traveling exhibit, presented by Lynx Exhibits of El Paso, Texas, is designed to offer a new appreciation and respect for the human body, also shows how the choices people make affect overall health, for better or for worse, said Hockersmith.

For example, the exhibit features a smoker's lung and a liver with cirrhosis, which are compared with their respective healthy counterparts. A damaged heart is displayed with a healthy heart. Visitors also will see a brain affected by a stroke that is complemented by a healthy brain.

The exhibit's show pieces are 11 whole bodies in various poses, based on anatomical systems, that create a sense of motion and reality.

The discus thrower shows the tensing of muscles in the arm, calves and back. The unclothed soccer player's perceived movement of kicking the ball with his right foot reveals in near-living reality his abdominal, pectoral and deltoid muscles, as well as arteries, bones and nerves.

Hockersmith said this technique of positioning the corpses allows visitors to relate the body to real-life situations.

The dissected body in “Man on a Mission” looks skyward while visitors observe his peeled-back chest, revealing his red arteries, blue veins, yellow nerves, lungs, heart, other organs and various muscles. Another body reflects the classic, contemplative pose of sculptor Auguste Rodin's “The Thinker.”

The notion of charging people $15 to gawk at a flayed human corpse playing soccer has, as one can imagine, raised ethical questions. An investigative report last year on ABC's “20/20” called a similar exhibit “ghoulish” and raised concerns that some of the bodies were obtained from China without proper consent.

The bodies are preserved through plastination — a multi-step process that stops decomposition by extracting fluids and replacing them with reactive plastics. Properly done, the procedure is supposed to make the bodies last indefinitely.

Hockersmith said the cadavers are obtained from a U.S. supplier who works with a plastination lab in Taiwan, where the bodies are prepared for this exhibit as well as other educational and scientific purposes.

The show debuted in June 2007 in El Paso, Texas, and has since traveled to Albuquerque, N.M; Watertown, S.D.; and Denver. Louisville marks its fifth stop.