Horror/Pleasure

Francis Bacon has spoken of the beauty of a diseased mouth or a road accident, but it is more compelling to hear Orshi Drozdik describe her first encounter with an anatomical dissection when she was at art school. After the initial shock of seeing a beautiful woman lying disembowelled she discovered that the lining of her stomach as a gorgeous, lustrous purple material while the texture of the organs provided a wealth of exquisite forms and colours. From horror to aesthetic pleasure is a short loop.

[Excerpt from "Body" by Anthony Bond 1997]

Photographs by Andres Serrano:

Jeanette Winterson

Let me penetrate you. I am the archaeologist of tombs. I would devote my life to marking your passageways,the entrances and exists of that impressive mausoleum your body.
How tight and secret are the funnels and wells Of youth and health.
A wriggling finger can hardly detect the start of an antechamber,
much less push through to the wide aqueous halls that hide womb, gut and brain.
In the old or ill, the nostrils flare,
the eye sockets make deep pools of request.
The mouth slackens,
the teeth fall from the first line of defence.
Even the ears enlarge like trumpets.
The body is making way for worms.

[Artwork is by Anish Kapoor, image courtesy of http://gaudionbowerbank.wordpress.com]