'Low Point In His Tastelessness'

That may be the understatement of the year.

A new exhibition featuring preserved dead bodies having sex opened in Berlin on Thursday with critics saying a maverick German anatomist dubbed "Doctor Death" has gone too far this time.

The couple, part of Gunther von Hagens's exhibition "The Cycle of Life", is the "low point in his tastelessness", Michael Braun, culture expert from the conservative CDU party, told AFP.

Von Hagens said his copulating couples show the sexual act in "bracing clarity".

The exhibits, of four "consenting donors", are in a separate room accessible only to over-16s.

One couple, because of the process used, "is reminiscent of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), as well as Leonardo da Vinci's anatomical drawing, 'Coition of a Hemisected Man and Woman (1492)'," he said in a statement.

The exhibition "offers a deep understanding of the human body, the biology of reproduction, and the nature of sexuality".

The dead bodies are plasticised, a process invented by Von Hagens involving skinning bodies to display the naked muscles, nerves and tendons underneath, and preserving them with a synthetic resin.

Frankly, I'm surprised the National Endowment of the Arts hasn't commissioned something like this.