O HOMEM-TELA DE WIM DELVOYE E A RELATIVIZAÇÃO DO PRINCÍPIO DA INDISPONIBILIDADE DO PRÓPRIO CORPO PARA FINS ARTÍSTICOS

Abstract

This work intends to analyze the compatibility of the brazilian legal system with the commodification of human skin for artistic purposes, adopting as a paradigm Tim Steiner’s case, who consigned his own back so that Wim Delvoye, a Belgian artist, could tattoo it and auction it. In order to do so, the study of Comparative Law is used, with respect to the safeguarding of physical integrity, specifically in Switzerland, which was the locus of the contract that fostered the sale of Tim’s skin, as well as in other countries with a civilist legal tradition. Subsequently, the protection of the human body provided by Brazil’s own civil law is examined, at first, regarding the physical integrity of the living person, and then, of the deceased. Some hypotheses that go beyond the capitalization of the body are also investigated, such as acts of bodily autonomy of a gratuitous nature, especially the preservation of the corpse and mortal remains in private collections and museums, all the while placing the right to physical integrity in a position of direct counterbalance to existential autonomy.