Nothing has changed since Aristotle noted a couple of thousand years ago that "it is not possible without considerable disgust to look upon the blood, flesh and similar parts of which the human body is constructed." Much here in "Skin of/in Contemporary Art," at the National Museum of Art, Osaka, until Dec. 2, is not pretty. One's own physical reactions to the artworks, by an international cast of 11 creators, are often of discomfort, both informing and heightening the viewing experience.

Following from the "body," emergent as a central focus in post-World War II art, "skin," in all its literal and metaphoric suggestiveness, has become a particular concern for the 1990s and beyond. It is an elastic theme, malleable enough to cover many a thing, and it is sometimes stretched too far.

A case in point is the work titled "This is My Body . . . This is My Software" (1993/2007). French artist Orlan had plastic surgeons perform cosmetic surgery on her, dividing up her face with a marker pen before the knife went in. Using local anesthetic to stay conscious throughout the procedure, the operations were documented in large glossy photographs. She presents a gory aesthetic salon — in contrast to the sanitized impression we have of surface treatments for hair, nails and makeup — and one particularly unnerving shot shows an incision beneath her chin, pulled agape like a second mouth. In one sense, this type of performance caters to gender politics and the horrors of beautification, and a postoperation photo of the artist makes it seem that she has been grievously assaulted through her own complicity. In another sense, Orlan is one among many artists engaged in doing the body violence, catering to the more gruesome ickiness that splatter films make their trade in.