It is easy to accuse Gunther von Hagens of contemporary kitsch. His plastinated cadavers are often displayed in a manner that smacks of the traveling circus of some centuries back. Although ghoulish, and on occasion rather cruel, most of the exhibits in his “Body Worlds” are theatrical in a flashy sort of way. Some are outright funny, as well. But the reactions to his traveling show only point at his lack of marketing savvy. To begin with, he has never called himself an artist. Only imagine what Damien Hirst would have done with the same body of work! As an artist of world renown, he would be hailed for his courage to face death without flinching. Plastination would be welcomed as a new artistic technique in its own right. Just like his pickled sharks, sheep, or cows, plastinated humans would make a splash the world over. And they would sell for untold zillions. He must be envious of von Hagens, I reckon. Pickling a human cut in half must have been on Hirst’s artistic agenda for years, but von Hagens beat him to it in his own spectacular way. For which he surely deserves some praise, guarded as it is.