Expected… 4000 nude people + one fully dressed photographer: Spencer Tunick in Amsterdam

According to Dutch news daily De Telegraaf 4.000 people have applied to be part of Sunday’s Spencer Tunick photo shoot in Amsterdam. [June 3, 2007 Update: 2.000 people showed up]

Meeting at an as-of-yet undisclosed location in the center of Amsterdam, they will disrobe for what the artist calls an ‘installation’: a sculpture of nude figures with public space as his decor.

No Tan Lines

Tunick calls his models ‘city adventurers.’ “People from all walks of life participate in my temporary installations — as I call these actions, because they are not performances. I am not looking for an audience, but rather need participants. People willing to use their stark-naked bodies to form a super-sculpture.”

“It is certainly not only nudists who come and help me,” the artists says. “There are always lots of art students who participate, but also housewives, teachers, electricians….”

The photographer says there is a small group of fans show follow around the world. “They apply for almost every project. I think that’s great, but I do not want famous faces in my pictures, so I kindly ask them to stand in the back. The same thing applies to people with tatoes that are too prominent, or ones whose bikini top and bottom tan lines are too clear.”

Tunick himself stays fully dressed. Not that he is a prude, but experience has taught him that his camera kit bruises and cuts his body. “You’ll agree that a nude photographer wearing only a vest for his lenses and roles of film looks dorky,” he says.

Pleased

Tunick, who last April already shot some pictures in the bulbfields near Amsterdam, is please that so many people applied for his Amsterdam installation.

» Details…

A few years back he barely managed to attract 400 people for a shoot in the Dutch city of Breda. But that was before he gained notoriety and become popular. He has been doing mass nude photo shoots since 1994. His breakthrough came when famous British collector Charles Saatchi commissioned him for a creation. Since then countless museums for modern art have sought him out.

Provocative, Not Erotic

“My work has nothing to do with sex or eroticism. I create dreams and memories no one will forget. Of course it has something provocative, but that is mostly in the fact that all these people are in adam-costume at an unnatural location, in the middle of the city, a bulbfield, or a museum.”

“I rather use the naked body mostly as an abstract form. The nudity in part symbolizes freedom. But it is more than that. It also references ancient magical rituals as they existed in classic mystery games.”

Skin Colors

Tunick is not yet bored with nude bodies. Photographing people who are dressed does not interest him, although he is working on a series of pictures in which nude and dressed people mingle at a party.

“Via my website I am collecting men and women with different skin colors. I hope to one day use those skin tones to create a more painting-like photo in New York. For example by drawing a line of black bodies through a group of only white bodies.

Dream Amsterdam

The pictures Tunick shoots in Amsterdam this sunday will be displayed on two giant billboards in the city, from June 23 through the end of August.

His project is thus used to introduce DREAM AMSTERDAM, a new art event that will yearly commission an artist of international renown to create a work of art in Amsterdam.

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