Baldessari Ponders Art Project Using Human Cadaver

A concept by the artist John Baldessari to display a human cadaver as a work of art could one day be realised, a leading curator believes, despite a recent failed effort to find and display a dead body within the strict legal framework surrounding death and physical remains.

This being Baldessari, there is a concept behind his project.

Originally conceived by Baldessari in 1970, the work would have visitors look through a peep-hole and see a dead body laid out with its feet towards them, in the manner of Mantegna’s painting, The Lamentation over the Dead Christ, 1480.

A great art law hypothetical for law students, indeed.

[Hans Ulrich] Obrist says lawyers were centrally involved in the attempt to negotiate the legal maze. “To exhibit a dead body in a museum in the wrong circumstances is highly illegal. You could go to prison, as we found out in Manchester[.]”

Via The Art Newspaper.

Tags: art, baldessari, corpse, death, law, mantegna, mortality, perspective, sculpture, viewpoint