The following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and clarifications column, Saturday 16 May 2009.

In the article below about an exhibition mentioned a method of preserving bodies that replaces their fat and water content with injections of silicon. Silicon is a repeat offender in this column. We should have said silicone.

A controversial German anatomy artist is facing protests over his latest plastination exhibition after unveiling a work showing two corpses having sexual intercourse.

Gunther von Hagens, whose latest exhibition, Cycle of Life, opens in Berlin tomorrow , has defended the exhibit saying that it combines the two greatest taboos of sex and death and is a lesson in biology, but is "not meant to be sexually stimulating".

The exhibition has drawn angry protests from a cross-party group of politicians as well as church representatives. They have called for the work to be withdrawn, saying it is pornographic and an insult to the dead.

Alice Ströver, an MP for the Green party, said: "This couple is simply over the top, and it shouldn't be shown."

"Love and death are obvious topics for art, but I find it quite disgusting to use them in this way," said Fritz Felgentreu an MP for the Social Democrats.

Von Hagens developed the plastination method several years ago after discovering a method for preserving bodies by replacing their fat and water deposits with injections of silicon, which then harden.

His popular exhibitions, which have travelled the world, have included corpses playing chess, high jumping, and horse riding. Others have shown a dead pregnant woman and foetuses at various stages of development.

The man and woman consented to appear in a sexual pose, Von Hagens said.