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 Autopsy (1973), by Waldo Bien
We became tired of drawing acts of patient waiting flesh. I ‘d rather understand the human body from inside out, dive into all those specific organs myself. So we, colleague student Martin and I, went to visit the Anatomical Institute of the University in Köln. At the entrance we greeted the doorman in his cabin, the first preparation of the anatomical section we got to see. We crossed the clinical smelling corridors to the anatomical collection. Painfully long we stood looking at the Siamese twins, the open vertebrae in alcohol, the moving underworld visages, skillfully peeled of their skulls and distended like exotic masks in a jar, visible from both sides. For initiating moments one could look through the eye-holes of some else’s mask.
The eyes in this gruesome face were mine. I was in delight about universal justice, that even most decent civil lives finally leave behind such amorphous trash. We entered the gallery with complete body’s nicely cut up in slices as at the butchers window around the corner. In fascination we slalomed around the basins with sliced men and woman. What wonder, seeing all those different organs with their specific functions so peacefully and cooperative next to each other. The secret seemed less within the specific functions itself, more in their social relations. Like a slaughtered pig I finally stretched myself out onto the tile floor, steered at by some medical students, laid there until I was getting colder than would be good for me.
We said friendly ‘auf wiedersehen’ to all seen and unseen preparations. Through the doorway I saw a school bus passing by and a light dressed walker.
On the sidewalk we sat down for a deep breath. I thought of all that dragging around with those sickly smelling corpses that were piled up on the desks of art historians, waiting for their sacred anatomic section and finally to be put to registered rest as analytical synopsis in an encyclopedic chronology. Just the next vertebrae of a giant serpent of which only the head is alive.
Sometimes it still upsets me, like recently, in the Ruga Vecchia Santa Giovanni, where the face of a pedestrian made the whole street lean over to starboard and slowly back. A knitting needle extended the hand of an old lady.
Her conversation was underlined by dramatic gestures of her hand, like she conducted an overture. I still wonder how someone next to her literally pressed some orchestrated cold squid through his throat.
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