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The New York-based artist is known for his photos of hundreds — sometimes thousands — of nude humans writhing around in public places.
There's the time he flooded the Sydney Opera House with 5,000 naked bodies, or when he broke his own record by getting 18,000 nude people to lay down together in Mexico City's Zocalo Square. His shoots have ranged in locale from Miami Beach to Munich, Germany.
Editor's note: This story contains images with nudity that may be considered not safe for work.
Artist Spencer Tunick says he's done a nude group shoot every year since 1994
Tunick at work in Munich, Germany.Luca Teuchmann/Getty
Like many artists, he used social distancing as an opportunity to try something new: His latest shoots are done entirely over video-conferencing platforms.
This led to a whole new project, titled "Stay Apart Together," in which he screenshots naked people wearing masks, coordinating their movements and positioning them just so.
"I always knew that I would fight through very odd situations to make my work, whether I was being chased down by the police, by the Giuliani administration, or attacked online by trolls," he told Insider. "I've always been resilient and fought for the truth and free speech for the body."
Tunick protesting Facebook's policies on nudity.Stephanie Keith/Getty
His new ongoing project is a collaboration with Alonso Gorozpe, a curator in Mexico
Gorozpe's team helps Tunick weed through thousands of applicants, as well as coordinate the chat rooms and video conferences, for their joint project.
"I, like many, have been pretty stifled and constrained by this crisis. My ability to make my art has stopped, but I still felt the need to connect and create," Tunick said. "At first I could not motivate, but with this new series using video conferencing came the ability to connect again with a global community."
Tunick says that he has a list of 50,000 people around the world that want to pose for him, and that he has invited around 4,000 of them to participate in this project. Applicants send a picture, list their occupation, and write a short statement on why they want to be involved. This time around, the artist said applicants sent him "very heartwarming statements on why it meant a lot to them in this time of quarantine and isolation to participate."
He believes art can bring people together, even when apart
"People need to connect intimately with their bodies in a non-sexual way," Tunick said.Spencer Tunick
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Subjects are chosen in a way that will yield "a rainbow of colors of people, different shapes and sizes, different ages," according to Tunick, who adds that the help he is getting from his collaborators is a huge relief.
"I want to accept everyone, because that's the nature of my work, to accept as many people as possible," he said.
Once he has chosen his participants, Tunick said he and his team send them all instructions, and sometimes even illustrations of the poses they want to see.
Tunick says the biggest obstacle he has faced is the limited number of people he can have on a screen
He sometimes sends illustrations of the poses he wants to see.Spencer Tunick
Tunick says he can only fit 50 people, including himself, on one screen, though he has worked with multiple screens to get 100 people in the shot. He adds that he's even gotten a few surprises when logging on, seeing familiar faces as unexpected participants.
To get started, Tunick says he introduces himself, thanks people for being there, and puts them at ease with some small talk.
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"I will bring up the pandemic knowing that some of the people are nurses and doctors and essential workers," he said, adding that he is grateful that "they chose to make art in their time off," especially people who are under much stricter lockdown rules than he is in Ramapo, New York. He said he had people from Spain and Italy participate while they were in quarantine, which he appreciated.
He says he's constrained by how many people fit on a screen.Spencer Tunick
Conversely, Tunick says that working over video has helped him 'communicate with people much more intimately than if they were 50 feet away'
"The interesting thing about the video conference technology is that when you scroll your mouse over the display, everyone's names come up," he said. "So if you have a grid of 100 people, if someone's doing something wrong, you can say, 'Hey Rashad, your arm is too high,' or, you know, 'Ana, please lower your screen.'"
Their coordinated movements are meant to "reaffirm the resilience of community and human connection in times of isolation."
"I didn't expect it to be that intimate, but I'm enjoying it because of the intimacy," he says of his new project.Spencer Tunick
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Tunick says his goal has always been to challenge the role of the human body in public spaces, to normalize nudity, and to differentiate between pornography and art.
"You can't always be right, but it's a great start to differentiate art with the body versus pornography," he said. "We need to have more body acceptance."
