Just Do It

Extraordinary Bodies: Mütter Museum Photographs

by Tami Fertig

Kyhphosified, William Wegman, 2000, Battina with specimen exhibiting moderate khyphosis of the thoracic spine. Scroll Down For More Pictures

Opening reception Fri., Feb. 29, 6-9 p.m., free with museum admission of $12 (reservations required), exhibit runs through Dec. 31, Mütter Museum, 19 S. 22nd St., 215-563-3737, ext. 304, muttermuseum.org

The Mütter Museum has long been our go-to place for preserved body parts and medical oddities: plaster casts of conjoined twins, cancerous growths, the world's largest colon (40 pounds when extracted from its owner, who died of constipation).

In order to show the world these treasures, the folks at the Mütter have spent the last decade inviting fine-art photographers to take pictures of the museum's objects for inclusion in calendars and, eventually, a national traveling exhibit. Since 2002, these images have visited places like NYC, San Francisco, Sacramento and Albuquerque. Starting this Friday, they will be displayed in Philly for the first time, right next to the subjects themselves.

The photogs were given free rein over the collection, so no two works are alike. Max Aguilera-Hellweg chose some skeletons wrapped in plastic in the storeroom. Joel-Peter Witkin positioned wax models next to flowers. William Wegman captured his dog sniffing a pelvis that's connected to an unusually curved spine (pictured).

"They would take a look around the museum and see what struck them personally and aesthetically," says curator Laura Lindgren. "What you're really seeing in the photographs is what these photographers responded to in the museum." While nobody took a liking to the not-so-photogenic mega-colon, everyone was drawn to the exhibit of sliced heads prepared in 1910. "It reminds me of if you cut down a tree, you can see rings," she says. "You can see the contents of the head."

Untitled, Arne Svenson, 2001, two saggital sections of a head prepared for the Mütter Museum by Dr. Joseph P. Tunis in 1910.	Torso No. 3 (Curved Spine), Gwen Akin and Allan Ludwig, 1985, dorsal and lumbar vertebral column with ribs, pelvis, and upper end of femora and marked lateral curvature.
Skull, Rosamond Purcell, 1993, skull from the Catacombs of St. Stephen with a print by Jacques-Fabien Gautier-Dagoty from his series on the anatomy of the female.	A Timeless Gesture, Rosamond Purcell, 1994, 19th-century wax model showing syphilitic leukoplakia (development of white, thickened patches) on the tongue.
Untitled #7, Max Aguilera-Hellweg, 1995, skeletons in the museum storeroom.	Untitled from the Mütter Series, Candace diCarlo, 2000, three foetal heads showing the development of the teeth.