Anatomy of Fragility – An introduction by Franziska Nori
Anatomy of Fragility – An introduction
by Franziska Nori, Director Frankfurter Kunstverein
From 2nd October 2025 to 1st March 2026, the Frankfurter Kunstverein presents the exhibition Anatomy of Fragility – Body Images in Art and Science.
The ways in which we look at, perceive and represent the body are in constant flux. Art and science have always used images of the body to tell stories about the human condition, and with each passing epoch new images and interpretations of the body have emerged. And so, the exhibition weaves together objects from different fields and periods: from the idealised depictions of the body in Archaic Greek art, through religious votive offerings as prayers for healing, to spectacular anatomical wax figures of the 18th century and on to the latest images from medical research, in which we travel virtually through a beating heart. The exhibition juxtaposes these with works by contemporary artists who express a new sense of physicality, its reinterpretation and the call for a new idea of humanity.
But why reflect on the body today? Do we not already know enough about it? We all have bodies. More than that: we are all bodies. The body can be observed from the outside and examined from within, measured and quantified. It can be pathologised and objectified, healed and cared for. Bodies are vulnerable entities. The vulnerability of the body is an existential condition of being human, and yet, nothing frightens us quite as much as this vulnerability. Illness, ageing and death render our biological being fragile, and so we do everything we can to optimise and bring under control the fact that bodies are finite. And at the same time, bodies are political. They bear characteristics that, when read culturally and politically, result in belonging or exclusion. The body has never been a neutral entity, but always an expression of its era and a mirror of its time.
Today, the body has become a central flashpoint of conflicting views of what it means to be human and of ideological battles. The body is not solely a private matter; it is the site upon which world views, value systems and thus politics are played out. Vulnerability is unevenly distributed within society. It has always been that way: those who control bodies wield power. And so, today, ideological battles are raging over our bodies—not always visible, but all the more bitterly fought.
While for humanists the physical body is central to human identity and experience, transhumanists regard it as a temporary biological limitation to be overcome.
Fragility is a fundamental condition of being human. We are born fragile and dependent upon others, and fragile and dependent upon others we remain in the face of our own mortality. Our bodies rely on countless necessities: food, sleep, the air we breathe, love and care. In society, the fear of shrinking economic growth is spreading, exacerbated by dwindling resources. At present, we stand paralysed, witnessing how quickly social peace can collapse. The resurgence of fantasies of international expansionism, armed conflicts and the longing for authoritarian rulers make us forget that, above all, the preservation of the planet and the functioning of ecological systems are cross-species prerequisites for survival.
We are vulnerable, yet who wishes to be vulnerable? Human beings have devised countless strategies of coping and avoidance to keep vulnerability at bay. And in times of digital mirroring and optimisation, the body has become a commodity—malleable and alterable—a status symbol of health, strength, discipline and success.
Vulnerability as Controversy – the Dispute over Vulnerability
Under the notion of social and political vulnerability, the fragility of individuals and groups is discussed—those who must endure fundamental experiences of dependency, subjugation and violence, namely people living under systems of state violence, people in poverty, people who are ill or people with disabilities, people affected by racism and discrimination, but also people in regions of severe environmental degradation, people whose bodies are read as non-binary and, time and again, and despite everything, women’s bodies. For this reason, human beings have always fought for rights, for access to care, for work, protection and participation.
The philosopher Michel Foucault had already interpreted the body as a field upon which power relations are exercised. His analysis showed how bodies are shaped and interpreted not only physically, but also through images, concepts and behaviours marked by power and knowledge.
The internationally influential legal scholar and ethicist Martha Nussbaum, at the University of Chicago, argues in debates on international law that inequalities—particularly with regard to disability, ageing and dependency—should be regarded as universal human characteristics rather than private failings. She is an advocate of an active politics of care and of a feminist conception of justice that goes beyond categories and even beyond species boundaries.
The philosopher and social theorist Judith Butler, who teaches at the University of California, Berkeley, believes that vulnerability is the central human characteristic that shapes the relationship between power and individuals. She explores the web of social relations and dependencies, asking who has access to the basic conditions of existence and who does not, who is recognised and included by the state and its structures and who is not. She calls for solidarity through collective acts of resistance and for the practice of political demonstration, in which vulnerable bodies defiantly confront power.
The philosophers Michael Hauskeller (University of Liverpool) and Rainer Mühlhoff (Osnabrück University) critically examine the notion of vulnerability in times of artificial intelligence, all-determining technological systems and their concentration in the hands of a few. Both focus on the phenomenon of the alliance between Big Tech and politics in the United States. They analyse and expose the current fusion of anti-democratic activity, a propensity for violence and the use of technology as an instrument of power by an all-powerful elite. What unites them is a world view and an image of humanity in which bodies are seen as an obstacle to be disposed of: the bodies of political dissidents, of migrants, of all those whose bodies are not heteronormative and male and above all of those who are not part of an exclusive elite.
What seems to unite the Big Tech Five and the MAGA movement in their visions of the future is the concentration of absolute power in the hands of a few, together with an interpretation of transhumanist ideologies. Here, technology is seen as an expanding instrument for shaping human evolution and for overcoming limitations such as ageing, illness and vulnerability itself. In this view of humanity, bodies are burdensome precisely because they are vulnerable. And so the mind is to be uploaded—eternally, immortally—into the cloud, which, on closer inspection, would mainly be available to a small, affluent elite. But what does this mean for the bodies that remain? What happens to them? Who are they?
Body Images in Science
Neuroscience, behavioural science and psychology have significantly deepened our understanding of our ‘self’ and sharpened our self-awareness. The body is the central medium through which a ‘self’ can first experience itself as part of reality. It arises in the interplay between the external world and the inner bodily, biological processes. What ever more precise imaging techniques reveal to us from within the organism is breathtaking. Whether by magnetic resonance imaging, ultrasound or computed tomography, the sight of our pulsating organs in real time has once again transformed our relationship to our bodies.
In the exhibition, the anatomical gaze and medical knowledge take centre stage. For it is through our bodily constitution that we experience the world around us—we see, hear, touch and taste it. We encounter it through our sense of pain, our sense of proprioception and bodily awareness, our sense of time and space, and our sense of belonging to a community and even to a greater whole. We inhabit this body and feel identical with it—or not.
From antiquity to contemporary phenomenology, human beings have reflected on the relationship between self and body. Antonio Damasio, professor at the University of Southern California and internationally renowned neuroscientist, examines the interweaving of body, feelings and emotions. He defines feelings as ‘mental experiences of body states’ and emotions as the body’s physical reactions to external and internal stimuli. These are interpreted by the brain and thereby generate our feelings. Together, they regulate the whole of life, consciousness and decision-making. Who, then, am I, if it is my body that first creates my idea of the self and the world?
Body Images in Art
The vocation of the arts is to explore and to speak of this. They probe, search and continually find new forms for the experience of being alive. Through engaging with emotions, experiences and the world, art can convey a deeper understanding of the human condition. Artists and thinkers do not fear vulnerability. They recognise vulnerability as a conditio humana and draw from it. Art is a mode of inquiry into the human condition that leads to self-discovery and to a deeper understanding of one’s own existence.
Imaginal thinking—that is, thinking primarily in images—plays a central role in creative power. Our experience can arise both in reality and in imagination. Images are interpretations of reality or emerge from what is seen. We have afterimages, memories, mental pictures and dream images with which our consciousness constructs a reality. Linguistic processes also work with these images. Our brain understands and processes information particularly strongly in the form of images, symbols and metaphors. Images address the limbic system, which is responsible for emotions. Stories, music and images can awaken memories and evoke moods. Above all, images exert an enormous power over us.
The exhibition Anatomy of Fragility emerged under the influence of strong positioning in contemporary art. Agnes Questionmark, Chiara Enzo, Yein Lee, The Alternative Limb Project and Marshmallow Laser Feast each, in their own way, address the question of our bodies and their vulnerability through images grounded in shifting perspectives and beliefs. What positions do these artists take? And what do they reveal about contemporary views and about the changing ways of seeing the world in our time? How bodies are represented is more important today than ever.
As exhibition makers, we think in images and through works. We do this in our own way, by setting contemporary artworks in dialogue with objects and perspectives from the sciences and with works from other epochs. The history of art is closely bound up with the history of anatomy. Knowledge of bodily structure has always been fundamental to representing the body, and this knowledge has arisen, since antiquity, through dissection, the breaking down and mapping of its parts, and the description of their form and position. For millennia, this was done in the form of drawings, and then later in the form of sculptures.
Anatomy of Fragility creates an interwoven parcours in which the increasingly scientific gaze into the interior of our bodies continually shifts and redefines the question of who we are.
The exhibition reflects the programmatic direction of the Frankfurter Kunstverein, in which contemporary art and the sciences are examined as equal forms of expression of humanity’s quest for knowledge and meaning.
Part of our way of curating exhibitions is the extended intellectual collaboration with numerous experts. Our heartfelt thanks go to Angel Moya Garcia, who enriched our curatorial team from Italy. We extend our deepest gratitude to all the participating artists—Agnes Questionmark, Chiara Enzo, Yein Lee, Sophie de Oliveira Barata (founder of The Alternative Limb Project) and artists’ collective Marshmallow Laser Feast as well as the filmmaker Iris Fegerl—with whom we developed and selected new productions and exhibition pieces.
Our thanks also go to our many institutional partners and lenders. Dr Matthias Recke, Custodian of the Collection of Classical Antiquities and Sculpture Hall, and Prof. Dr Anja Klöckner, Professor of Classical Archaeology at the Goethe University Frankfurt, who made the loan of the monumental statue of Kroisos Kouros from their collection possible, which marks the starting point of the exhibition parcours at the Frankfurter Kunstverein.
Special thanks are owed to Prof. Dr Bastian Schilling, Director of the Department of Dermatology, Venereology and Allergology, University Hospital at the Goethe University Frankfurt, as well as to Prof. Dr Falk Ochsendorf, Thomas Koculak and Andrea Steininger-Rusch, who introduced us to their scientific moulage collection and generously supported us with loans. Dr Judith Blume, Coordinator of the Collections at the Goethe University Frankfurt, created the framework for these collaborations.
At Justus Liebig University Giessen we were able to rely on the expertise and support of Dr Michaela Stark, Custodian of the Collection of Antiquities of the Chair of Classical Archaeology, who loaned the exhibition Etruscan votive offerings from the 3rd century BC.
We also extend heartfelt thanks to the President of the University Museum Network of the Alma Mater Studiorum – University of Bologna, Prof. Dr Giuliana Benvenuti, as well as Prof. Dr Stefano Ratti, scientific adviser of the “Luigi Cattaneo” Anatomical Wax Collection, and Prof. Dr Lucia Corrain, scientific adviser of the Museum of Palazzo Poggi, for realising this international cooperation with us. Special thanks are due to our colleagues of the University Museum Network Dr Annalisa Managlia, Technical Coordinator, and Dr Cristina Nisi, Loans and Legal Affairs, as well as to Daniele Angellotto, restorer at the Opificio delle Pietre Dure in Florence, whose extraordinary personal commitment made the fragile loans possible and their first presentation in Frankfurt.
Of great importance was our exchange with the research team at the Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Medicine MEVIS, whose Head of Science Communication, Bianka Hofmann, offered us unique insights into the institute’s work.
We thank the artist Benedikt Hipp for his collaboration on the loan of works from the private collection of Hans and Benedikt Hipp from Pfaffenhofen. These unique and moving wax votive offerings and their wooden model are essential to the exhibition.
We also thank Paolo Zani, Matteo Larice, Mariolina Bassetti, Mauro de Iorio and Stefano Menconi for the loans from their private collections. Galleria Zero in Milan supported Chiara Enzo, while the gallery Airas Wang de Lafée in Girona supported Agnes Questionmark. The Zabludowicz Collection provided additional financial support for the production of nine new works by Agnes Questionmark, commissioned by the Frankfurter Kunstverein. We would like to thank our colleagues at Netzwerk Nachhaltige Kultur for generously providing numerous display cases. This network is a voluntary association of Frankfurt museums and representatives from the independent scene who have joined forces to promote reuse and circular economy in the exhibition sector.
Without the patronage of the Italian Consulate General in Frankfurt, and the personal commitment of Consul General Dr Massimo Darchini and the Head of the Cultural Office Michele Santoriello, this exhibition as a German-Italian collaboration would have been unthinkable.
When people work together, it creates strength, joy and confidence—through which almost anything becomes possible.
Franziska Nori
Director Frankfurter Kunstverein
