Wanted: Dying People for Art

Alex

German artist Gregor Schneider is planning the ultimate (literally!) performance art piece: he plans to show a person dying as part of the exhibition!

“I want to display a person dying naturally in the piece or somebody who has just died,” he told The Art Newspaper. “My aim is to show the beauty of death.”

The artist says that Dr Roswitha Franziska Vandieken, who runs her own private clinic in Düsseldorf, has agreed to help find volunteers who are willing to die in public in the name of art. Dr Vandieken was unavailable for comment. “I am confident that we’ll find people to take part,” says Schneider.

Link - via Jasonspage


Comments (19)

Newest 5
Newest 5 Comments

One misunderstanding of ethics keeps popping up in any of the discussions about this. That is, that it can't be unethical because the subject agrees to it.

However, the subject of a scam or a ponzi scheme agrees to the terms of the scam, but that doesn't make said scam ethical.

I am not comparing Mr. Schneider to a scam artist, please! I am merely pointing out that the willing participation of the subject, in and of itself, does not confer ethical respectability to the project.
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Just wrong in so many ways.

Is it "art"? Here's the scale to test it on:

Will this be in a museum or even remembered in a thousand years' time?

500 years?

A century?

A decade?

6 months?

Tomorrow?
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Beautiful or not, it is definitely art.
However, to me it kind of comes off as an excuse for dealing with dying people...
Anyway, it is definitely not unethical because the it's based on the subject's choice.
I wouldn't want to browse a gallery of it though.
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I don't see what's so bad about it. I guess art is doomed to be the most objective thing in existence, but I didn't expect so much opposition.

If anything, this will have a big impact on some people. If Art is about invoking a feeling, memory, opinion, etc in a person or a group of people, than this is better than some mountainous landscape, right?

I don't think it's wrong or that you have to be a lunatic to want to put your death on display. Some people want to die alone at home, and some would want to do something like this. It's your death, I say do whatever the hell you want with it.
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@Serris

Not to mention the 7 ball bearings, crown, and inner and outer races in each bearing, of which each wheel has 2.

so all in all this thing has ~294 moving parts.
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That...looks amazing. =D Strange, but amazing. My one true love is surfing, but alas, I live in a landlocked city so it's sort of a pain to get to the ocean that is 20+ hours away. If this actually worked like a surfboard, I would be in love and would dig into my bank account today to buy one.
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I agree, this must be heavy. Also, obviously not a trick board like a standard skateboard. This thing is definitely a cruiser only. Personally, I've never had any issues sidewalk surfing on my skateboard and I doubt this would improve that.
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Rode one of these years back.

It carves well but other than that it isnt really great for anything. It seemed like it was going for riders that like to longboard but would also like to do a trick every once in a while. As a result it isnt great for either. It can be ollied so you can do some things with it but it's awkward and takes some adjusting to.
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Regular skateboards do practically the same thing. They can still turn the same way. This one looks a little bit smoother in the design, but it seems to be a little bit of a novelty.
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These are not new at all. They are very heavy. They made a different board with the same idea, but it works much better. It has 3 wheels on each side, with the middle wheel a little farther from the board. Called the Freeboard. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFHkA2J-2Tw
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Yeah, I bought one of these back in 2000 when they first came out. The video they had of this guy shredding up and down hills and streets was truly awesome. So awesome, that i bought a board.

It is truly heavier than a normal board because of the added weight of the trucks and extra wheels. I only attempted to ride it once before almost breaking my ankle.

I still have it with the extra wheels if any one wants to grab it??
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yeah, how is this different from soft bushings on normal trucks? on a tight turn, the board would still be tilted way over with the wheels almost touching the wood.
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