Corpse Artist Planning Polish Factory

The controversial German artist famous for his "plastination" displays of human corpses stripped of their skin wants to build a factory in Poland to mass-produce his work, officials in Warsaw said. Gunther von Hagens, whose exhibit "Körperwelten" (Body Worlds) has attracted millions of visitors around the world, has already bought land and factory buildings in the western Polish town of Sieniawa Zarska, close to the German border. "His father told us what he plans to do here. Von Hagens plans to open a plastination factory of human bodies," a senior municipal official told Reuters news agency. Plastination describes a method of preserving human bodies pioneered by Von Hagens, in which natural body fluids are replaced with solid plastic. Von Hagens reportedly plans to employ 300 people at the Polish factory. Authorities in several countries have tried unsuccessfully to stop his displays of corpses.