Abstract Flesh

Mr Wang is busy with work, kids and studies, so he will content himself by posting short little articles with very brief commentaries.

May 7, 2007
Mexicans strip for photographer's biggest nude shoot

MEXICO CITY - MORE than 18,000 people stripped down and bared it all in Mexico City's vast main square for US photographer Spencer Tunick's biggest nude shoot yet.

Standing up to salute, crouching in fetal positions and lying prone on the tiles of the Zocalo plaza, the volunteers formed a sea of flesh on Sunday that Tunick snapped from balconies and a small crane in the morning light.

'What a moment for the Mexican art scene!,' Tunick said.

'I think all eyes are looking south from the United Sates to Mexico City to see how a country can be free and treat the naked body as art. Not as pornography or as a crime, but with happiness and caring,' he said.

The Brooklyn artist has become famous for photographing thousands of naked people in public settings worldwide, from London and Vienna to Buenos Aires and Buffalo.

But the Mexico City shoot dwarfed all others.

Previously his best turnout had been 7,000 models in Barcelona in 2003.

'I just create shapes and forms with human bodies. It's an abstraction, it's a performance, it's an installation,' Tunick said.

'So I don't care how many people showed up. All I know is that I filled up my space,' he said.

Interesting to compare this with Singapore's attitude towards nudity in the arts. And also to the Crazy Horse episode in Singapore.