Naked Memory: the Spencer Tunick Experience in the Museum Space

Faculty of Information Quarterly Housing Memory Conference Proceedings Vol 1, No 3 (May 2009) Naked Memory: Abstract The American artist Spencer Tunick is The Spencer internationally known for organizing and photographing massive nude Tunick gatherings in public spaces, including parks, streets, and squares. His work has generated great controversies Experience in the regarding the juxtaposition of public space, nudity, and art. Tunick refers to Museum Space these events as “temporary site- specific installations” (Rosenfeld, 1999). When Tunick started his artistic project Valentine Moreno, Master of in 1992, the installations were performed quickly to avoid Museum Studies, Faculty of confrontations with authority, and Information, University of Toronto. involved either individuals or small groups. Since 2001, however, several Valentine Moreno was born in Sao museums and art institutions around Paulo, Brazil, 1978. She obtained a the world, including the Musée d’Art Bachelor degree in Photographic Art Contemporain de Montréal and the and Culture at Senac University Center Baltic Center for Contemporary Art in in 2006. Since 2001, Moreno has Newcastle, have commissioned worked as a cultural manager, Tunick’s installations. Most of these organizing several contemporary art installations have taken place either exhibitions, cultural events, and art inside the museum’s facilities or in front publications. She is currently attending of their façades. These have the Master of Museum Studies engaged thousands of nude program at the University of Toronto. volunteers, who refer to their Her academic interest is focused on experience of modeling as nude the relationship between contem- bodies in public space as, porary art and museological prac- “meaningful, remarkable, memorable, tices. transformative” (Young, 2005, p. 4). Page 1 of 1 Faculty of Information Quarterly Housing Memory Conference Proceedings Vol 1, No 3 (May 2009) The use of Spencer Tunick’s squares1. The gatherings are difficult to define, collective nude installations has for they can be considered simultaneously as transformed the museum space. body-art, performance, site-specific sculpture, temporary installations, urban intervention, and Considering the public’s profound even political activism. The artist himself experience in participating in Tunick’s frequently refers to his work as ―temporary site- work, several examples will examine specific installations,‖ (Rosenfeld, 1999) and how these transformations mostly argues that he is ―trying to create flesh occur in the intangible realm of the architecture‖ (―In the Studio: Spencer Tunick,‖ nude participant’s memory of a 2006). Gilman (2004) claims that Tunick‘s cathartic experience within the artistic project juxtaposes the intimate and the museum space. These examples will public sphere. Accordingly, his nude events also investigate possible have generated great controversy in several transformations initiated by the countries. Nevertheless, hundreds and even museum space in Tunick’s artistic thousands of volunteers engage in the installations and despite the nudity, critics have production. The memory of the noted that Tunick‘s photographs are ―more fleeting construction is also material- affecting than erotic‖ (Turner, 1998, p. 90). ized in the final art object: the According to Vine (1995) they reveal the poetic photograph, which stands as the combination of the softness of the human body installation’s official document. Finally, against the roughness of the urban space. the study analyses how the museum What could drive so many people to be has become the institutional space nude in public, and among strangers? Ward where the experience provided by (2001, p. 72) argues that people volunteer for Spencer Tunick’s controversial work is the installations because ―Tunick offers ordinary legally authorized, in a symbiotic folk the exclusive opportunity to actually relationship between the artist and the become his art‖. However, a more evident museum. explanation for the great quantity of volunteers is that participants largely refer to their Introduction ―experience of modeling as nude bodies in The American artist Spencer Tunick is public space (as) meaningful, remarkable, internationally renowned for organizing and memorable, transformative‖ (Young, 2005, p. photographing massive nude gatherings in public spaces including streets, parks, and 1 Images of all installations cited in this paper can be found at www.spencertunick.com and www.essential- architecture.com/tunick/tunick.htm. Page 2 of 2 Faculty of Information Quarterly Housing Memory Conference Proceedings Vol 1, No 3 (May 2009) 4). This is an experience found to be liberating, the museum as public space and the aesthetic cathartic, and even therapeutic (Turner, 1998; characteristics of Spencer Tunick‘s artwork. Murray, 2002) 2. Since 2001, this experience has shifted from the streets to the museum space, as From the streets to the art institutions around the world began museum commissioning Tunick‘s installations. Curiously, the installations are usually arranged to happen Tunick began documenting nude people in in front of museums‘ façades or even set inside public spaces in 1992, primarily portraying their facilities, thus juxtaposing the nude individuals and small groups in New York. intervention with the physical and conceptual During this initial period, the installations were done very quickly, resembling Kaprow‘s space of the institution. happenings and other interactive art- Although many critics have analyzed performances of the sixties (Fineman, 2008). Tunick‘s installations and photographs from an They were ―often conducted like early morning artistic or sociological perspective, none have guerrilla raids‖ (Vine, 1995, p. 122) to avoid reflected on the implications of their apparent confrontations with authority, since the transition from the streets to a museum setting. combination of nudity and public space is The profound experiences of the public that mostly forbidden and seen as an abnormal participates in Tunick‘s collective nude practice. Tunick started to draw attention after installations have transformed the museum gathering one-hundred-and-fifty people in an space. In order to raise possible answers to the installation at Times Square in 1997, an occasion questions above, first Spencer Tunick's artistic on which he was also arrested. In fact, between trajectory is outlined in light of his association 1994 and 1999, he was arrested five times in with museums. Secondly, some examples of New York, under charges of ―unlawful installations occurred in partnership with art assembly, creating a violent act, disorderly institutions are analyzed. Finally, it is argued that conduct, public exposure, and reckless the alliance between Tunick and the museum endangerment‖ (Young, 2005, p. 6). During this deeply interfered with both the perception of period, Tunick undertook a six-month project entitled Naked States, in which he photographed nude models, either individually or in groups, in all fifty American states. The project aroused 2 Engaging in Tunick‘s installations is such a strong experience that discussion forums and virtual great awareness of his work, and resulted in a communities are abundant and widely found in social networking sites such as Facebook and Orkut. Avid traveling exhibition and an HBO documentary. participants also maintain a website entitled The Spencer Tunick Experience, in which participants After two years of fighting in court for share their experience and emotions of engaging in Tunick‘s installation. the right to make his art on New York streets under the First Amendment, police were finally Page 3 of 3 Faculty of Information Quarterly Housing Memory Conference Proceedings Vol 1, No 3 (May 2009) forbidden to interfere with Tunick‘s public nude the case against the city of New York. Secondly, installations as long as they were kept it was the first time he was undertaking a project underground, unpublicized, and under a in such close partnership with a large institution. hundred participants (Ward 2001). In 2001, after Finally, it was by far the largest installation to his judicial win, Tunick initiated an international that date. From that point forward, Tunick‘s project, Nude Adrift, which aimed to execute at installations grew larger and more ambitious least one nude installation in all seven (Fineman, 2008), involving more and more continents. This project was undertaken people. At the same pace , several museums and differently in each location included in the cultural institutions began commissioning itinerary. In some countries, such as Japan and Tunick‘s installations. In fact, a close South Africa, Tunick was literally backpacking examination of Tunick‘s body of work reveals with his girlfriend and a small film crew (Ward, that, after 2001, the vast majority of the 2001). In those places, he did not have any installations were indeed carried out under the institutional support, and the installations commission of museums and art organizations resulted in mostly individual portraits.3 In other worldwide.5 Accordingly, these installations countries, however, Tunick‘s installations were were (and still are) often organized to include possible due to partnerships with museum and the museums‘ façade, incorporating the art organizations such as the Musée d‘Art museums‘ architectural aspects as part of the Contemporain, in Montréal, and the Melbourne installation. Without having to rush the work to Fringe

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