That is because they were us. Their freakish forms, bizarre behaviours, even their magic powers, were expressions of the lingering wildness in us all. They gave shape to our inner Swamp Creatures—the primal fears and imaginings, the lusts and eccentricities, the built-in bugs and defects beneath our standard-issue skins.

Monsters can be dangerous. To give them free rein is to invite calamity, as China’s history shows. But while the vile in us must be restrained, it cannot be suppressed. We may do away with blue-skinned tribes and fish-people, but evolutionary ape-men and cyborgs, cloned sheep and mutant viruses soon take their place. And the vile in us is not always evil. It can be beautiful, even glorious, as the artists in VILE BODIES show. In exploring the monsters we contain and the monsters we create, they enlarge our picture of the human animal.