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Filling the streets with bare naked bodies
Spencer Tunick: Artist hopes 5,000 will disrobe for Toronto shoot
James Cowan
National Post
Tuesday, October 22, 2002
TORONTO -- Spencer Tunick wants to fill the streets of Toronto with bare naked flesh. He wants 5,000 Canadians to shed their clothes, lie down in the streets and let him photograph them. The artist has organized mass nudity in cities including Vienna, Santiago and Melbourne and now wants to bring his expressionist, exhibitionist artwork to Hogtown.
Last year, the 35-year-old installation artist photographed 2,500 people lying naked in the Place des Arts in Montreal. Despite the large crowd, Tunick managed to shoot three distinct scenes in less than 40 minutes.
"When they're nude, people really want to listen to your instructions," said Tunick during an interview at the Artcore Gallery in Toronto. He was in town on a scouting mission, hoping to drum up support for a shoot that would double the size of his last Canadian endeavour.
As we chatted in the gallery's office, the artist, casually dressed in a black sweater and slacks, fiddled nervously with the strap of his bag. A large man with a gentle voice, Tunick's quiet personal manner contrasts sharply with the grandiose artwork he creates. Since 1992, the New York-based artist has documented crowds of nudes in public, starting with his hometown of New York and now in cities on six continents. While he photographs each event, Tunick says the actual events are pieces of art as well.
"I call them temporary site-related installations and performances that I document with photography and video," he explained.
Creating the installations in surprisingly prudish New York has been a challenge. He was arrested five times while working in New York, most recently during a shoot in Times Square. After the final arrest (the charges were later dropped), Tunick filed a Federal Civil Rights lawsuit against the city to protect himself from future problems. In June of 2000, the United States Supreme Court ruled in his favour, which in theory allowed the artist to use the city streets.
"I won my case at the Supreme Court and I was all excited," he explained. "Then, I applied for my first permit, but [the city officials] didn't give me my answer until two days before the shoot and then they turned me down. So they still deny the permits even though they legally have to give them to me."
Tunick paused for a moment before adding, "Now that there's a new mayor, maybe they'll give me permits. Who knows?" Learning from his New York hassles, Tunick will only work abroad if he's welcomed by the local government.
"In New York, a day or two days in jail is a small price to pay for making this type of artwork," he said. "But I don't know how long I'd stay in jail in another country. It might not be a day or two, it might be a long time, so I always get permission from the government."
Permissions have been universally forthcoming, with governments and art institutions welcoming Tunick to their cities. He participated in the 2001 Valencia Biennial in Spain and the 2002 Sao Paulo Biennial in Brazil, and has standing invitations to shoot in Italy and Germany.
"I think because I was constantly criminalized in New York, other countries are proud to say that they consider the naked body to be an art object that's appropriate to display at a certain time and place. Nobody wants to be the first city to say 'no' and equate themselves with the mentality of the New York City administration," he said.
Despite having shot 50 group events, Tunick still has unfulfilled naked ambitions. He wants to shoot a mixed-race crowd in South Africa, a crowd in front of Mount Fuji, and a throng coating the Great Wall of China. In the short term, he hopes to set a personal record with a Toronto event.
"It would be wonderful to do 5,000 people here," he said, "My largest right now stands at 4,500 in Australia. I think if we can get some of the participants from Montreal over to Toronto, Canada might be able to beat the number."
But why, one wonders, would anyone want to strip down to their birthday suit and lay down in the middle of Nathan Phillips Square?
"It's definitely a new life experience," replied Tunick. "On a physical level, to be nude amongst thousands of people is something you have not experienced -- the heat of the bodies around you and the energy. And how many times can the public make a contemporary piece of artwork?"
"And everyone gets a print for posing, so it works on three levels."
Tunick said he's optimistic that Toronto the Good might be willing to become Toronto the Naked sometime next year ("I promise warm weather," he said when asked about the shoot's timing). He added that he appreciates the extroverted attitude he encountered first in Montreal and now in Toronto.
"In New York I get arrested and turned down for permits, but right above New York is this open-minded country that excepts the body as an art form without shame. Canada is like this big grin that is looking down on gloomy New York," he said.
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