Andrew Krasnow's Gruesome Human Skin Art

Such masterful technique and skill -- at generating attention and funding.

I'm sure those who donate to medical science were hoping that their final gift would be used to actually help someone, and not this sort of nonesense.

Makes my skin crawl.

@Kalel

When I die I want you to make my ass into a handbag.

The guy only uses white people skin? Being racist to prove a point on racism is kinda counterproductive.

Is there really any use for skin from a cadaver? I mean, it can't last forever, and most of the research goes into the internal organs, brain and skeleton. I'm thinking that the skin is a waste product a lot of times if unable to be used immediately. Oh well, now we know what PETA representatives will start wearing.

@Flux

Why is choosing to use one coloured skin over another racist? He's not saying one is more inferior over the other, so how do you figure that?

"art" the new synonym for "dumbass"

The dude's a freakin' wierdo. If the maps were made out of animal skin, it'd still be wierd. Didn't we make arts and craft materials for a reason? There's got to be a better way to make a statement than this.

I like it. Politics be damned, that'd be some freaky art!

I can just imagine what a great conversational piece of one these would be!

"Wow! What kind of leather is that map of America made of? Deer?"

"Nope! Human!"

*end of conversation*

Is this suppose the make me feel embarrassed and ashamed to be white? The only point he's making is that he's a sick f**k. And a racist.

how much for whitey skin shoes?

Whats he supposed to do? use only black peoples skin. In fact I don't think we would be reading about it here if he used only black skin.

Now if he really wanted to play the contraversial artists card...

So, if the bodies that this skin came from were donated to SCIENCE and research, how did this hack "artist" get his hands on it? This rubbish doesn't even qualify a art, let alone science.

Calling it "art" doesnt make it intellectual or particularly creative. I find this prank to a childish attention-seeking device.

Gauldar:
"When I die I want you to make my ass into a handbag."

A small party clutch, or saddlebags for my horse?

*sneeer* This guy gets honored for this, and all poor ol' little Ed Gein got was a life sentence to the nuthouse.

I was thinking about donating my body to the med school here, but if this is what happens, then forget it: skin to artists, bones to the pet store, organs to the soup kitchen. The med school brochure: "Your body will be treated with the respect that it deserves". Meanwhile, some effete poseur is eating stew from my bowl-skull under an umbrella made from my skin.

WoW! You ban comments here? Grow up! Or this a little kids site?

this guy is sicko

@ felix - I think comments are moderated for language, but not banned.

Yeah I dont think the people who donated their bodies thought they would end up as art.

I hope that guy's gonna be cool when I eat his liver in the name of art.

Klaatu Barada Ni*cough* *cough*

"...a direct response to the belief that similar items made from the skin of Holocaust victims were found at Buchenwald concentration camp."

A belief? Are you denying it happened?

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/skin.html

Sad, but "art" is now just a measure of who can be the sickest. I'm gonna get me a twofer and paint a portrait of the Madonna on human skin using elephant dung. It will be sublimely beautiful. Or at least expensive.

It is sad what people try to pass off as art these days. A Monet is art. A Faberge' Egg is art. A representation of the shape of the US made of human skin is a disgusting piece of trash - I think it even says so in the dictionary.

This guy is a douchebag.

"He uses skin to make the point that suffering is universal,"

Doesn't the practice of only using white people's skin take the universal sense and crush it into the ground, leaving only sensationalism?

Look at me everyone! I'm so edgey and cool and totally awesome.

*yawn*

So tired of these attention seeking pieces of crap calling themselves artists.

I have a hard time believing this guy was able to get permission to use human skin for an "art project." I mean, it's not just some scrap on the cutting room floor-- it's human body parts, not to mention a biohazard. And how can he prove it's human skin anyway? Sounds like a good hoax to me.

and even if it is human skin-- someone had to do it I guess. Gimmicky at best. Is that what he really wants to be known for? Lame.

Skin from donated bodies is usually used for burn victims. It isn't scrap.

I'm not sure the donors expected their bodies to be used this way, and that's frankly the only thing that bothers me about this.

Not much of a commentary. And yes, intentionally using white people skin is racist.

Art... anything thats made with the intention of stimulating emotions, thoughts etc. Well thats how i see art - seems pretty successful art if the above is anything to go by.

I think Sarah Perez may be onto him.,,!

"Art… anything thats made with the intention of stimulating emotions, thoughts etc. "

That's the dumbest statement EVER.

By that "logic" if I slug you really really hard in the gut, I'm an artist.

What? You didn't get that my moving fist was an analog for today's rapid paced society and that the nauseous feeling you got was the underlying thoughts of the downtrodden members of society in a capitalist run economy.

"His work, he says, is a commentary on human cruelty and America’s ethics and morality."

And what is the comment?

VonSkippy > yeah! you got it... think it needs to be captured/recorded/performed in some way though... you wanna come to London and stage a gut punch performance art show?

@VonSkippy

With todays standards... that would actualy pass for art.

LOL LOL LOL LOL
///Gallery owner Robert Devcic said Krasnow uses only white skin because much of the suffering in the Americas has been caused by white people. "He uses skin to make the point that suffering is universal," he said. "It is tanned using the same process that you’d use for an animal skin."///

Bull shit, if he uses black skin, he would be ripped apart

Someone in New Jersey back in the olden days was skinned for committing a really bad crime and turned into a wallet. As long as he legally obtained the skin then who cares?

If anything this is really cool. :)

Is it art? Not really. But it is trippy. :)

Um, excuse me. I am vomiting now.

This is disgusting and not necessary. It is bad enough that people use animal skins for similar purposes. Using human skin is just as bad. I agree with previous comments about donation of bodies to medical science. I doubt the people who made these donations has this ridiculous purpose in mind. It seems very unethical.

I wondered what Gene Simmons was doing these days.

I love the reaction this has caused. Shows how many conservatives there are in the world. I hope it has made some people think - wake up to the state of the world. Compared to what we do to animals and what happens to people in the third world this is tame. What a fuss and so many rationalisations to distract from the point of the work. Art that touches a few nerves - great! I love also how people think they are experts on what art is - such self-importance (ooh so precious) - sort of what the art speaks of here. I'd be honoured if my body was used in the name of art and for a statement that shocks

Look inside an abbattoir and then you might vomit, oh sensitive one Miss Curly. Perhaps you could look into the guy that does the cloaca shit art.
Sharon - I see no similarity in using dead people who donated their bodies, to animals who had no choice and were killed to be eaten and their skins made into leather.

I think that this is really irresponsible "reporting"... These so-called "writers" are trying to disgust and shock the readers to get hits on their page, but haven't seen the work. I, in fact, have seen the show. It's dark, yes... and very moving. And I assure you that a 2 line blurb where the tags are 'nazi, serial killer, human skin, lampshade' isn't a fair representation of the work. And, just as a note as the the accuracy of these articles... there aren't any lampshades in the show. Not of skin, not of anything. There are, in fact, lamps without shades at all... six of them. One for each of the million killed in concentration camps.

The disgusting part of this whole manufactured uproar isn't the work... it's the hack writers trying to sensationalize it.

Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one. Instead of rotting into dust, why not use them for art?

Andy can have my skin if I die first.

Did you even bother to read your "the Nazis DID IT" link? Just as with the soap, and, arguably, the holy "gas chambers" that preserve the critical immunity of the West's Zionist ruling class to this day, NO, they did not.

It seems that anything goes nowadays so long as it is in "the name of art". Does the exhibition of human skin lampshades and other items make Hitler an artist? How can we condemn what Hitler did to the remains of his victims but accept it when someone else does it in the name of art? When people donate their bodies it is for the purposes of medical science not for some so-called artist to make an exhibition of. Where does it all end? What about an "artist" committing murder and then displaying the body as art? Or someone's property being vandalised and the photograph of the incident displayed as art?

This is obviously a pretty biased piece of information on his show. Perhaps the persons leaving ignorant comments should do a little research before posting hate into the collective consciousness.

http://www.krasnow.net/early_int.html

The concept seems very obvious to me: "Amerika Amerika. I turn away from thee." And WHY. I was just reading today, in the Guardian U.K., about an innocent man finally out of Guantanamo after 6 or 8 years, but permanently blind in one eye after an American guard (he'll probably never track down) gouged it out on command from a superior.

Rob @45 - "When people donate their bodies it is for the purposes of medical science not for some so-called artist to make an exhibition of."

Not so. There were 2 traveling exhibits using donated bodies - one in Vancouver BC, one in Seattle Wa - from two different groups - using real human bodies - skin and organs - donated to science. They were scientific exhibits, but one could also assert that they were artistic, creative renderings, among any number of other descriptors. That is, they weren't purely scientific exhibits, though they certainly could be used for that purpose.

The Vancouver exhibit - which I saw with my child (who was, and still is, very interested in science) - the bodies and organs are prepared using a technique called plastination, showing inner anatomical structures, and rendering the skin somewhat in appearance like dehydrated food you take camping, only over a much larger surface, of course, and very fibrous in appearance, long strands. Conveys the fibrous strength of the human body. The exhibition's developer is a German anatomist, Gunther von Hagens, who invented the plastination technique (to preserve bodies and body parts by removing water and fats) at the University of Heidelberg in the 1970's. The Canadian exhibit also included a section on the development of the human fetus, using real embryos and fetuses at various points of development, from donations that had spontaneously miscarried. (Acts of God as abortionist. Which circumvented objections to that issue.)

At which point, and back in Amerika, the controversy mostly surrounded the Seattle exhibit because some of the bodies had come from people who died in prison in China - and had not "given permission" in the sense that we give permission in the States, because there, if you go to prison, you automatically relinquish that right (and your family does too) should you die in prison.

The one that was in Seattle -
http://www.bodyworlds.com/en.html

The one that was in Vancouver BC
http://www.bodiestheexhibition.com/bodies.html

I had a friend who died on a liver list, and i recently read about a little boy who can't get on a heart transplant list without 1/2 million dollars down payment -- which is just to get on the list. In Amerika.

So it seems appropriate, from a certain perspective, and in the land claimed by virtue of European butchery of millions of Native Americans, that one could realistically and morally conceive of our nation, via a flag made of human skin, just like the Nazis did.

Sorry - Body Worlds was the one I saw in Vancouver BC. So I reversed the locations on those links.

I wonder if he uses human brain to tan the hunam hide?