spencertunick

SPENCERTUNICK
articles
In April 2003, I received an
email inviting me, along with 200
other people, to take my clothes
off in an undisclosed location in
central London. We were told to
dress in loose clothing, wear no
jewellery and keep any valuables at
home. This is what happens when
you volunteer to take part in an
installation by the New York-based
photographer, Spencer Tunick.
As we learned when we arrived, the
“installation” (as he prefers to call his largescale shoots) was part of the opening night
of the Saatchi Gallery on the South Bank.
Though we had been warned that we should
expect “invited guests”, I don’t think we were
quite prepared for the attention we received. As
well as Tunick’s team, our audience included
television camera crews from both sides of
the Atlantic, various press photographers and
journalists, celebrity guests (Steven Fry, Tracey
Emin and Bianca Jagger among others) and
members of the public riding round the London
Eye. The following day, we seemed to have
made the front pages of almost every national
newspaper as well as a big splash in the May
edition of Heat magazine.
Tunick vs Giuliani
Tunick is not alone, of course, in his
choice of subject matter: the work of other
photographers, such as Rankin in England
and Weissbach in Germany, also feature
ordinary people naked. Where Tunick is unique
is his total avoidance of studios, preferring
instead to create his images outside in urban
environments, typically in public places.
Not surprisingly, this has brought Tunick
into conflict with the authorities, most
notably in New York where, under the zerotolerance policy of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani,
he was repeatedly arrested for taking nude
photographs in public. On one occasion in
December 1994, both Tunick and a model were
arrested and charged with public lewdness,
criminal trespassing and disorderly conduct for
a shoot involving an eight-foot Christmas tree
ornament at the Rockefeller Center. In 1996,
two models were arrested when they attempted
to pose outside an ice-cream parlour. Tunick’s
legal battles culminated in 1999, when police,
under Giuliani’s orders, threatened to arrest all
participants in an installation for public nudity
- an offence under state law. Tunick was forced
to abandon the shoot.
On 3 June 2000, he was finally granted an
injunction by the U.S. Supreme Court to stop
police interfering in a shoot that was planned
to take place the following day. The Court ruled
that artistic expression, as defined under the
First Amendment of American Constitution,
effectively exempted him from prosecution
under public nudity laws. Tunick called the
decision a victory for “any contemporary artist
working with the body”.
Which doesn’t mean, of course, that public
nudity is legal in New York, even if it is part of
an ‘artistic’ event. As Tunick’s lawyer Ronald
Kuby said “While it’s still a crime to be naked on
the streets of New York, the District Attorney’s
Office has been beaten up so badly around this
case, both in the courts and in the media, that
I think its interest in stopping public nudity has
diminished dramatically.” It remains to be seen
whether the city will try and stop him in future.
Tunick as Art
In retrospect, Tunick’s success in court was
at a turning point in his career. The publicity
surrounding his fight to exercise his artistic
freedom raised his profile and enabled him
to mount installations around the world and
on an increasingly large scale. His current
record stands at 7,000 people in Barcelona in
June, and he is set to beat this later this year
in Santiago, Chile, where he hopes to attract
8,000.
Whilst Tunick owes part of his success
to his ability to handle the media, there is a
risk that such attention will overshadow the
work itself. Whilst there has been extensive
coverage of the installations themselves,
relatively little consideration has been given
to what those installations actually produce. To
ask the question bluntly - are his photographs
any good?
As with any artist, the only way to answer
this question is to look at the actual works
themselves (in the flesh, as it were): examples
of his work available on the internet fail to do
justice to their sheer scale. His sole agent in
the UK is the Hales Gallery in London, a tiny
place on Deptford High Street, where seven of
his pictures from the Nude Adrift series were
exhibited in 2002.
Tunick described one of his installation
photographs as an attempt to depict “a living
organism of hundreds of bodies forming a
landscape, the relationship between the
anonymity of public space and the human
body”. Central to these images is the
exploration of the tension between the naked
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figures and the city environment around them.
A photograph taken in 1996 is typical, in which
the space created by the Brooklyn Brige is
made strange and unfamiliar, as if transformed
into a cage enclosing the people inside.
Similarly, in another New York photograph
from 1994, people lie in a formal geometric
shape, apparently unconcerned at the line of
traffic bearing directly down upon them. The
same idea but with a different effect can be
seen at work in a photograph taken in 2001
in Melbourne here, hundreds of people crouch
down, framed by green parklands, packed
closely together, looking like strange fleshcoloured animals.
Although he is most famous for his group
installations, his most artistically successful
works are those featuring single people.
signs that suggest deliberate self-mutilation the flesh is bleeding, marked both by fresh cuts
and what look like older scars. You are left to
wonder about the events which lead up to the
taking of the photograph, to try and reconstruct
the narrative by reading her face as she stares
directly but blankly at the viewer. These are
powerful and intelligent images that leave you
in no doubt that behind the publicity and hype is
a genuinely talented and innovative artist.
Anyone can do it
There is no such thing as a typical participant
in a Tunick installation. Although some naturists
volunteer to take part, they are by no means in
the majority: more often, they are people who
just want to try a new experience. (Strangely,
&
Light
Contrast
Stunning, memorable photographs are
different in some special way that isn’t
always readily definable. They may be
unusually composed, contain odd subject
matter, include brilliant juxtapositions of
color, or dramatic counterpoints of light
and shadow.
When attempting to generate these photos
ourselves, looking for settings with lots of
contrasting light and shadow can often be
the quickest route to impressing friends and
maybe that high-priced talent scout, too…hey,
you never know.
Here’s an example of using window light
to make a moody, high-contrast photo. A
larger example is available at the bottom of
the page.
Why might using contrast be easier than
unusual compositions, odd subject matter, or
opposing colors? Because it takes less work
and is less likely to flop. Wherever you go,
there will be examples of contrasting light and
shadow that might represent an easy photo
opportunity.
Concentrating on an individual rather than a
group gives each image its identity giving a
more direct emotional impact. At times, the
images are almost surreal in their presentation
of naked people in situations where clothes
seem not only normal but essential - such as
a woman in Neko Harbour, Antarctica, with a
single penguin for company; or a business man
on the rain-soaked streets of Montreal, willing
to remove his clothes but not to let go of his
briefcase. At their best, these works imply a
narrative - like a snapshot from a real life in
which the viewer is invited to elaborate a story
from the evidence presented by the face and
body.
In his best solo works, the implicit narratives
are both complex and strangely disturbing. For
instance, in a work shot in Santiago, Chile,
a woman stands alone in an eerily empty
street, facing the camera, her left leg painfully
strapped and bound. As she grips her crutches
to stay upright, she looks both vulnerable
and uncomfortable, as if she’s waiting for the
experience to end. Even more unsettling is an
image of a woman standing by a deserted rail
track in Kyoto, Japan. On both her arms are
some naturists actively disapprove of Tunick
for what they see as ‘exploitation’ of naked
people.) Tunick himself has said of his volunteer
models that they each have their own reactions
to participation. Most people think they can
predict what it feels like, but it’s a collective,
new experience for the body.’
If you want to get some sense of what it’s
like to take part in an installation, there are
numerous personal accounts on the web;
but amongst the best and most evocative are
those by Peter at Montreal and by Alan, whose
comprehensive and poetic accounts of the
recent installations in Portugal and Barcelona
shouldn’t be missed. (I have for some time
been managing a small MSN group for Tunick
veterans, and am pleased to say we have both
Alan and Peter on our member lists.)
Once you find a good contrasting setting,
you can then go through your normal routine
to get a shot. In contrast, thinking about an
unusual composition takes longer, though
it too can be fun and rewarding. Moreover,
finding odd subject matter or brilliant
juxtapositions of color can be rare or may
require bring props.
Of course, you may often be able to create
your own high-contrast setting as well by
playing with window blinds (as above), partially
opening doors or using spot lighting. Doing so
can really add that special something to your
photos and make your friends wonder if you
recently took that expensive photo course
they wish they had time for.
If you’re interesting in taking part in a future
Tunick event (there are rumours that Tunick
will be returning to the UK in 2004), you can
register your interest on his website:
http://www.spencertunic.com
You should - it’s good fun.
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© 2004 STANISLAV POPOV