Naked Art or Just Naked?
Does corralling people to get naked and to pose in such nakedness for a photograph constitute art? And, does such a practice speak more to promoting a social message more so than an artistic purpose?
Spencer Tunick seems to think its art and that he is an artist. It is true that he has the ability to singlehandedly command throngs of people to get naked and pose. For the life of me, though, I just can’t wrap my head around this practice.
How is this art?
Yesterday, Tunick was up to his old tricks again—this time on the steps of the Sydney Opera House. Thousands of men and women, old and young, cast off their clothes and stood in all their morning glory, stark nakedfor the artist’s newest installation. This time, the installation was commissioned by the organizers of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras currently underway in the city.
5.200 total disrobed including one woman, severely pregnant,who even postponed a planned Caesarean so she could take part in the shenanigans. The rest of the people were tourists, doctors, office workers.
Most of the people claim that “it doesn’t feel sexual” but rather “tribal—a gathering of humanity.”
Tunick has produced around 100 of these installations, the largest of which included almost 18,000 people in Mexico City in 2007.
I'm curious how you define art. Spencer Tunick's work is art because it alters how we see physical space, affects our perceptions about decency and nudity, and comments on our expectations of the human figure. Probably not great art, but art nonetheless. Why do you not think his photographs are art? What do you think art is that this isn't?
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I never spoke to the idea that the photographs do not have any artistic merit. What I am highlighting though, is something that you refer to as "probably not great art." I would suggest that the whole process to create these photographs has become somewhat sexualized (maybe because of the media's role in covering the staging) and have lost their value as an art form. To me, art is a collection of beautiful or significant things that moves me in some positive way. Art takes on a different meaning to different people. To me, this is more exhibitionism than art.
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