Artist Spencer Tunick transforms Sydney Opera House into a nude installation

5,200 strip for the sake of art

Artist Spencer Tunick transforms Sydney Opera House into a nude installation

Over 5,000 "volunteers" who had assembled at 4 am yesterday at Sydney's iconic Opera House in dark, cold and windy conditions to be photographed in the nude, set what has been described as a world record for "art installation".

The volunteers had responded to a call by American photographer Spencer Tunick, who has photographed "installations" through cities including Dublin, Lisbon, Melbourne, Sao Paulo and New York.

Tunick has attained fame - or notoriety - for using the naked body like other artists use "oil or clay". But While some of the participants in what one Sydney newspaper headlined as a "Five-thousand bum salute", art critics have not all been as enthusiastic in acclaiming him as a serious artist.

According to one newspaper: "The mood was happy, strong. Young and old, straight and gay we were united in our nudeness. We were declaring to the world: 'Yes, these are our bellies, our tuckshop and our hairy backs. Love them as we do'."

Another participant exulted in the letters column of the same newspaper: "Well, I did it. At age 67, I got my kit off and posed naked and proud on the Opera House steps. And what an exhilarating experience it was."

What an art: A section of the 5,200 participants taking part in the nude installation by New York based artist Spencer Tunick titled Mardi Gras:The Base, pose on the front steps of the Sydney Opera House yesterday. Since 1992 Tunick has produced more than 95, short-lived, site specific installations across the world's most culturally significant cities and landmarks. Pic/AFP

u00a0He says that despite the chilly weather, "the mood was filled with bonhomie and camaraderie. Then, as dawn was breaking, the command came to 'drop 'em' and we were herded like newly shorn sheep onto the steps. We were all in high spirits, cheerful and chatty, mates and strangers.

"At no time did I witness any behaviour remotely lewd or improper, even as we were instructed to pose as kissing couples, though many of us had arrived singles.

"When it was all over, some were in no hurry to get dressed and stood around talking to friends, strangers and the media, relishing our new found freedom.

"Could we," asks the novitiate, "have Nude Day once a month? It surely was a liberator and a spreader of joy"
However, morality aside, not everybody was equally enthusiastic even from the artistic point of view.

u00a0Mia Fineman wrote of Tunick's "art" in an article in the online magazine Slate in 2008: "The main reason I think most critics have ignored him is that he doesn't have anything to say. His installations are spectacular and attention-grabbing, but as for what it all meansu00a0... well, to out it bluntly, I don't think it extends too far beyond, 'Wow. That's a lot of naked people'."

Jonathan Jones of London's Guardian is more forthright: "Tunicks's work isn't art, and no one who actually considered it for a moment would say it was," the art critic wrote in 2007, "There's no interesting 'thought' underlying his work nor is it a provocative challenge to what art is.

"Liking Spencer Tunick", wrote an enraged Jones, "is a covert way of saying you hate art."

(Source: The Sydney Morning Herald)

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