Recommends: Prosthetic fantastic


First published in Prospect (Issue 196)  

Superhuman
Wellcome Collection, 19th July-26th October

A photograph of Thomas Hicks, winner of the 1904 Olympic marathon, propped up by two men as he stumbled towards the finish line is one of sporting history’s oddest images of victory. Whereas a failed dope test can now ruin a career, Hicks quite legitimately dosed up on strychnine in brandy during the race to boost his endurance.

The Wellcome Collection’s “Superhuman” exhibition shows the various aids men and women have used to try to achieve things that had previously seemed beyond human power. Often these are everyday objects—the exhibition includes false teeth, tubes of lipstick and an iPhone. More interesting are those paintings and photos which contain the suggestion of an enhancement. For example, a pair of spectacles with a silver nose attached to them present a mystery, until you read that they were worn in the 19th century by a woman disfigured by syphilis.

The show includes prototypes and portrayals of enhancements that have never been realised, as well as those which have become near-indispensable. Side by side, the failures make the successes seem all the more fantastical.