Forget all your preconceptions about the gruesome work of Gunther von Hagens, aka Dr Death. The controversial anatomist, best known for reviving the public autopsy, opens a new show at the O2 in London today and it’s a cracker.

Bodyworlds charts the human life cycle from conception to old age. So far so ordinary. But the explosive element von Hagens adds – as most people with a pulse will already know - is real-life humans. Or rather, real dead cadavers.

When Von Hagens was a research assistant at Heidelberg University back in the 1970s, he refined a technique for preserving dead bodies. Plastination involves removing the fat, water, blood and tissue from the body and reinjecting it with a plastic.

As he refined the technique, he realised he could use it to mould the bodies into dynamic positions, and in the 30 years since has been creating a collection of artfully poised preserved cadavers which he puts on public display. This latest show includes a figure seated at a table, apparently absorbed in a game of chess, a couple engaged in a rugby tackle and another pair in a gravity-defying balletic pose.

Unsurprisingly, his work has attracted both admiration and condemnation, earning him the unflattering Dr Death moniker and worse, the nickname “Josef Mengele” in his native Germany.

It might sound horribly gruesome, but don’t let that put you off making the trip to the O2. No-one is more squeamish than your correspondent, but contrary to expectations, Bodyworlds isn’t gory. In fact, what strikes you most is how surprisingly beautiful the show is.

As von Hagens says, anatomy as a subject for exhibition has traditionally been neglected, not because the subject matter isn’t compelling, but because the possible content - old bones, degenerated body parts - has generally been ugly and unappealing. He prides himself on putting the art into anatomy.

True, some may find the preserved foetuses a challenge, and the dangling torso with its intestines on display might induce a mild nausea. But in the main, the unique view von Hagen’s corpses offer into the reality of our human make-up, means that squirmishness soon gives way to fascinating.

Even more beautiful than the corpses, are the cross-sectional slices. Inspired by 3D MRI scans, von Hagens has cut wafer thin slices through hands, lungs, brains. The plastic gives them a translucent quality, which when they’re easily distinguishable, like the bones of a hand, look like colourful x-rays. When they’re more abstract they bring to mind amber fossils. They also tell some powerful stories. Smokers should pay particular attention to the cross sections of two lungs, one healthy, the other damaged by nicotine. While the brain flabby with Alzheimers is a graphic depiction of the relationship between the functioning of our minds and our physical bodies.

Von Hagens has also used his technique to expose the complexity and fragility of our arterial systems. He’s injected the veins in a head, an arm and a heart with red-dyed plastic to fix them, then removed all surrounding tissue, to reveal the delicate pattern of blood veins and vessels.

This show, and this may find disapproval with some, is also pretty funny – though not in a laugh out loud, Carry on Cadaver kind of way.

A flayed man holds out his skin, intact in a single sheet, as if he is about to hang it out to dry. A man is mounted on a horse, which is also plastinated, both beings holding out their brains for us to compare.

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