Artist Makes Fun Things Out of Human Skin

Donating your body to science has never been more fun!  First there was that whole corpses-screwing bit in Germany, and now this: an American artist, Andrew Krasnow, has created a number of pieces – flags, boots, maps, lampshades, a $10 bill – out of human skin.  

Using skins from white men who donated their bodies to medical science, he has created freak versions of mundane items including flags, boots and maps of America – in effect using skin like leather. His work, he says, is a commentary on human cruelty and America’s ethics and morality.

How easy is it to just buy body parts from science these days?  Can I just walk into a science store and buy skin?  How does this work?  Is it like fabric, by the foot?  ”Hello sir.  Fifteen feet of white skin, please.”  ”What do you need it for?”  ”I’m making lampshades.”  

Krasnow’s human-skin American flags were created just before the first Gulf War for the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, although they were never displayed after Republican politicians Bob Dole and Newt Gingrich denounced his work.

“The objective was to express my concerns about the war and that it would not be conducted in a way that was moral and ethical,” he said. “Since that question wasn’t permitted in a museum, the work became more complex, with all the inherent contradictions of what it means to be an American or, for that matter, to be human.”

Speaking of morality: 

The exhibition in London in July will include a new sculpture made out of the final piece of skin Krasnow obtained in a job lot 20 years ago.

I mean, war is pretty shady.  Obtaining human skin in a job lot is also pretty shady though.

Source: The Independent.