New Body Worlds exhibition opens at Singapore Science Centre

A plastinate of a basketball player is displayed at the exhibition Body Worlds and ‘The Cycle of Life’ in Singapore Science centre on October 22, 2009. Anatomist Gunther von Hagens, inventor of plastination and creator of the world?s original and only anatomical exhibition feature approximately 200 new authentic human specimens, including whole bodies, individual organs and animal specimens is on display at the Singapore Science Centre from October 23 till March 6, 2010. Getty Images

Channel NewsAsia | Oct 25, 2009
By Claire Huang

SINGAPORE: The controversial anatomical exhibition known as “Body Worlds: The Original and The Cycle of Life” is in town, and this is the first time the exhibition will be shown in Asia under this theme.

The exhibition uses plastinated corpses for its displays, and the human bodies seem to come ‘alive’ as they engage in activities such as playing basketball and painting – a realism that organisers of the exhibition hope to achieve.

Dr Angelina Whalley, director of the Institute for Plastination, said: “Most of our visitors have never been confronted with a corpse so we want to appeal (to) them. We want to catch their interest and that’s absolutely mandatory to have specimens put in a very aesthetical and beautiful-looking way.”

Body Worlds is the brainchild of Dr Gunther von Hagens, creator of plastination – a process to preserve human bodies for medical studies.

While the exhibition has attracted some 28 million visitors in 50 cities, some religious groups have questioned the need to use real human bodies. However, organisers say it is purely for scientific study.

Dr Chew Tuan Chiong, chief executive of Science Centre Singapore, said: “I think the exhibition is really going to be a journey of discovery for many people, whatever their initial beliefs and perceptions are.

“So we think besides being very educational about human body and anatomy, it’s also going to allow people to understand fully what they’re concerned about, worry about death, worry about diseases, or even worry about things like superstitions and culture and so on.”

Compared to the first such exhibition here six years ago, organisers say the 200 new displays this time round are more varied and developed.

All exhibits come from the Institute for Plastination’s body donation programme, which comprises a donor roster of more than 10,500 living and dead donors worldwide. Organisers say donors have to give their consent before their bodies are used.

Singapore is the second site for this exhibition after its world premiere in London.

The exhibition opens until March 6 next year, and organisers hope to attract some 200,000 visitors. Ticket prices range from S$12 to S$21.

The previous Body Worlds exhibition in Singapore attracted some 160,000 visitors.

Pictured: Hitler playing chess with Lenin

An extraordinary etching of a young Adolf Hilter playing chess against Vladimir Lenin has come to light. The art work is by Hilter’s Jewish art teacher Emma Lowenstramm who witnessed the game Photo: BNPS

A picture of a young Adolf Hitler apparently playing chess against Vladimir Lenin 100 years ago has come to light.

Telegraph | Sep 3, 2009

The image is said to have been created in Vienna by Hitler’s art teacher, Emma Lowenstramm, and is signed on the reverse by the two dictators.

Hitler was a jobbing artist in the city in 1909 and Lenin was in exile and the house where they allegedly played the game belonged to a prominent Jewish family.

Winston Churchill returns to the Government In the run-up to the Second World War the Jewish family fled and gave many of their possessions, including the etching and chess set, to their housekeeper.

Now their housekeeper’s great-great grandson is selling the image and the chess set at auction. Both items have a pre-sale estimate of £40,000.

The unnamed vendor is confident the items are genuine after his father spent a lifetime attempting to prove their authenticity.

He compiled a 300-page forensic document that included tests on the paper, the signatures and research on those involved.

Experts, however, have questioned its authenticity especially the identification of Lenin who they say might have been confused with one of his associates.

When the etching was made, Hitler was 20 and Lenin was twice his age and the house was where politicos went to discuss things.

The etching is thought to be one of five and shows Hitler – playing with the white pieces – sitting by a window, with Lenin opposite him in half shadow.

It is titled “A Chess Game: Lenin with Hitler – Vienna 1909″.

It raises tantalising questions about what the two men who helped shape the world in the 20th century might have spoken of.

Lenin was already a highly influential Russian figure who in 1907 went into exile once more after the revolution was crushed by Tsarist authorities.

Richard Westwood-Brookes, who is selling the items, said: “This just sounds too good to be true, but the vendor’s father spent a lifetime proving it.

“He compiled a 300 page document and spent a great deal of money engaging experts to examine the etching.

“The signatures in pencil on the reverse are said to have an 80 per cent chance of being genuine, and there is proof that Emma Lowenstramm did exist.

“The circumstantial evidence is very good on top of the paper having been tested.

“Hitler was a painter in 1909 and his Jewish teacher Emma Lowenstramm was the person who made the etching.

“There is some suggestion that when he came to power Hitler protected her and she died from natural causes in 1941.

“At the time, Vienna was a hotbed of political intrigue and the house where this game took place belonged to a prominent Jewish family.

“Lenin at the time was moving around Europe in exile and writing “Materialism and Empirio-criticism”.

“His movements are hazy and it is known that he did play chess and later he certainly wore wigs as a disguise.

“It is also known that Lenin was a German agent and the house was where people went to exchange political views.

“The chess set is clearly the same chess set as that in the etching. It is a box chess set that folds out and the pieces are identifiable – particularly the kings and bishops.

“To my knowledge there are five etchings of this image, but this has the signatures of both men and the artist.

“The provenance is that it has come through the family of the housekeeper who was given it when the Jewish family fled in the late 1930s.

“The family is based in Hanover and it is the great great grandson of the housekeeper who is selling it.

“On all sorts of levels it is an extremely valuable artefact. Even as just an allegorical picture it shows the men playing chess possibly for the world.”

Historian Helen Rappaport, who has just written a book called “Conspirator: Lenin in Exile”, said the etching was probably a “glorious piece of fantasy”.

She said: “In 1909 Lenin was in France and there is no evidence that he was in Vienna.

“In October he went to Liege in Belgium and in November he went to Brussels. He would have visited Vienna before and after that year.

“He liked the place and went there because he travelled around Europe on trains, but he wouldn’t have been there long enough to meet a young Hitler.

“He was also as bald as a bat by 1894 with just hair on the sides of his head.

“And when in exile he was not known as Lenin and instead used a number of aliases.

“The person believed to be Lenin in the etching may well have been one of his revolutionary or Bolshevik associates who was misidentified.

“It may even have been an Austrian socialist with whom he associated in the Second International.

“The Germans did fund the Bolsheviks and gave them millions of marks for the revolutionary effort, but Lenin was not a German sympathiser.

“Although this is totally spurious it is wonderful to bring these two great megalomaniacs together.

“It makes sense retrospectively and the history of art is full of retrospective meetings between people.”

The items are to be sold at Mullock’s auction house in Ludlow, Shropshire, on October 1.

Australian artist wins prize placing Aboriginal elements in a Masonic temple scene

Danie Mellor and his winning From Rite to Ritual.

Secret world of two cultures wins Art prize

torresnews.com.au | Aug 23, 2009

By MARK BOUSEN from Darwin

The virtually closed world of Freemasonry has been a focal point of this year’s winning entry in the 26th Annual Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award for his work From Rite to Ritual.

Canberra-based artist Danie Mellor took out the $40,000 first prize, announced in Darwin at a gala function last Friday night.

Measuring 2.07m x 1.54m, the mixed media on paper artwork features intricate layers of imagery with Aboriginal people and Indigenous animals placed against a setting that is littered with elements of European culture.

From Rite to Ritual

In this case, the meeting place is the interior of a Freemason’s lodge and the work highlights the importance of secret and public ceremony and initiation in both cultures; it speaks of the challenges of settlement; and the differences in spiritual enactment and belief.

Danie told the Torres News the drawing of the detail inside a Lodge came from an 18th-19th century engraving of a European Free Masons’ Lodge.

He said he had been inside a Freemason’s Temple, but had not discussed the meanings or significance of the Craft with a Freemason.

The work is very detailed and accurately depicts many of the inner-workings of a Lodge Temple.

“I understand what it means, but it is one thing to understand it but another to explain it.

“The work looks at the structure of the institution and the special and secret hidden nature of different cultures – in this case, Indigenous culture in Australia and the Freemasonry movement in Europe.

“There are similarities in that there are initiation ceremonies in both cultures; and those ceremonies are secret in both cultures.

“Rite Ritual is a portrayal of people, and the different ways and feelings of old cultural differences.”

Danie said the work took about three weeks, working 12 to 14 hours a day.

“This picture was almost waiting to happen. Any work takes years of research and preparation and then an artists decides to do it – and it can happen very quickly.”

He says he now has a deeper understanding of the craft of Freemasonry than when he started the project.

“The painting recognises the spread of different civilisations and that is often achieved by architecture, and the different ways of building as opposed to Indigenous culture.”

The $4000 Telstra General Painting Award was awarded to Yinarupa Nangala from Kiwirrkurra in Western Australia for her untitled work.

The $4000 Telstra Bark Painting Award was awarded to Rerrkirrwanga Munungurr from Wandawuy (East Arnhem Land) Northern Territory for her work Gumatj Gurtha.

The $4000 Telstra Works on Paper was awarded to Glen Namundja from Gubalanya (Western Arnhem Land) Northern Territory for his work Likkanaya and Marrayka.

The $4000 Wandjuk Marika Three-Dimensional Memorial Award was awarded to Janine McAullay Bott from Perth for her work Dhalkatj – Bilby.

* Mark Bousen is a former Freemason.

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ACT artist Danie Mellor wins National Telstra Art Award