The naked truth

Spencer Tunick knows what it's like to test the boundaries of the law.

Between 1994 and 2000, the photographer and installation artist said he was arrested five times in New York City for taking pictures of naked people.

It wasn't anything raunchy. These weren't photographs of a few people.

At times, thousands voluntarily disrobed in the name of art: in particular, for Tunick's vision of transforming the landscape using the repeated and multi-hued textures of the bare human form.

"I call them temporary, site-specific installations," Tunick said. "These are installations that I document using photography and video."

There are state laws in New York that protect artists from charges of public indecency, Tunick said. All he needed were the proper permits. Problem was, the city of New York refused to issue them. Tunick went ahead with his projects anyway, without the permits.

That got him arrested. And that got the Giuliani Administration into a lawsuit.

In suing the city, Tunick initiated a chain of events that ultimately led to an appeal brought before the United States Supreme Court.

City officials sought an order to block Tunick from staging further installations. The high court, however, refused to suspend a decision made in a Manhattan federal appeals court, affirming Tunick had a First Amendment right to make his art.

Though a distraction, if not a kind of arch charade, the proceedings were necessary, Tunick said, to assert the difference between art and pornography. They lead to some humorous results, too: "Justice Scalia ended up looking at a bunch of naked photos."

We caught up with Tunick to talk about creating his art and, in the process, breaking the law.

Savannah Morning News: How do you get all those people together?

Spencer Tunick: When I'm invited by museums to do these large-scale works, they send press releases asking people to participate. It's an open call to open-minded people. The response ranges from complete shock to complete participation by thousands. I try to get people who are not nudists, people who want to perform once in their lives naked.

SMN: You call these installations, in which bodies are integrated with the landscape. What factors came together to inspire that concept?

Tunick: I like the subversive and progressive natures of the naked body. The body as electric lightening rod and the body as being affected by that lightening. It's sensual, but it could be the exact opposite. If your mind thinks about the sensual, then it goes that way. If your mind thinks about the organic, then the bodies can be like seashells on the beach.

SMN: You seem to use the human form as objects that make up the texture of an image.

Tunick: To see that texture, you have to repeat the objects of beauty. If you take a street in Savannah and cover it with seashells, one shell leads to another; one shade and tonality leads to many shades and tonalities. Then you have the full picture of beauty.

SMN: You've been arrested a number of times for conducting these installations. What is it about the naked form that arouses so much controversy?

Tunick: When the nude enters the public sphere, it become a like a bomb. Newspapers can show a bloody mangled arm, but they cannot show a naked male torso. The body is relevant in public, but as something dealt with respectfully in the right time, place and manner. But that doesn't stop my work from pushing some buttons. I just hope it opens other people's idea of what the body can be.