DF Drops Pants For Spencer Tunick, Again

Spencer Tunick, whom you may remember from his infamous photos of nudes assembling in public, en masse (Miami, Mexico City, you guys know what we’re talking about), has struck again in DF.

This time, instead of getting 20,000 people to get naked in Zocalo square, he opted for individual nude portraits- still in public. A NWS Video follows:

Tunick, a native New Yorker, says he returned to DF because he feels safer working in Mexico than in the U.S. And apparently there’s no shortage of people willing to prance about stark naked for him, since his 2007 shoot of nudes in Zocalo saw 20,000 volunteers show up. The next biggest group before that was in Amsterdam, where only a third of that number could be mustered. Mexico, something you want to tell us?

Tunick says this project is about creating individual portraits, and is inspired by 20th century painter Andrés Blaisten. The 40 subjects were shot nude, in public, on the streets of DF, with many using props or poses that refer to Blaisten’s paintings. Tunick’s project is also about nudity, (No! Really?) and about how the nude body is treated as a source of shame when displayed in public. Tunick wants to restore “basic dignity” to the nude form, and judging by the pictures of women sprawled naked across fruit-carts, we think we’d call his work a smashing success. But whatever. It’s hot, and many of the scenes are well-shot and thought provoking, so we will briefly suspend our skepticism and just enjoy it. Check it out for yourself when it debuts at the Tlatelolco University’s Cultural Center in April 2009.

Presentará Tunick en abril una exposición de sus obras en el DF [La Jornada]