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| 18,000 Nude Mexicans Photographed |
| A massive photo shoot subverted people into artistic brilliance |
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Erich Adolfo Moncada Cota (komodo)  |
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Published 2007-05-09 02:05 (KST) |
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On Sunday, U.S. photographer Spencer Tunick photographed 18,000 nude people in Mexico City's vast Zocalo Square.
 | |  Tunick's installation in action, in Zocalo square | | | ©2007 pseudoelecciones2006.blogspot.com | |
Tunick is well known for photographing crowds of naked volunteers. His first shootings began in 1992 in New York City. Since then he has organized installations in more than 15 cities worldwide. In June 2003, he photographed 7,000 naked people in Barcelona. His largest shooting in the United States took place in 2004 in Cleveland, Ohio, with 2,754 attendees.
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FROM THE SECTION |
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| Mexico City's square is the most significant landmark of the Aztec nation. Considered the heart of the country, it is surrounded by local and federal government offices, the Metropolitan Cathedral and the "Templo Mayor" ruins from the pre-Hispanic era.
Tunick invited his models to join the project over the Internet with the promise of a limited edition photograph. The people gathered at 4:30 in the morning to avoid the sun's rays. Almost 500 people had to be left out of the event. As a sign of protest, they stripped anyway and chanted, "picture by picture, naked by naked ... everybody gets in or nobody enters" -- unsuccessfully. Many of them were from other Mexican states like Oaxaca or Guerrero.
At 7:18 a.m. and 22.5 degrees Celsius, Tunick started to work, ordering the volunteers into three body positions: standing up with arms out to the side, lying horizontally on the ground facing the sky and curled up like a rock. As a surprise shot at the end, the women were asked to remain at Constitution Plaza. By then the men, who represented 75 percent of the attendees, had their clothes on and some of them used their cell phones to snap pictures of the women's bodies.
At times, people shouted several political chants like last year's "vote by vote, booth by booth" by Andres Lopez Obrador's supporters during the disputed elections. Some women screamed "abortion, yes" and "not more deaths." Many shouted against the Catholic Church's cardinal: "Norberto Rivera, the people are in their bare asses." Some of even had the nerve to urinate on the cathedral. (Mexico City legalized abortion last month despite the Church's objection.) Overall, however, discipline was extraordinary and the event took place in an orderly fashion. The police reported no incidents. But a couple of models did lose their clothes.
During a brief press conference, Tunick asked everyone to look to the South, "from the United States to Mexico City, to see how a country can be free and treat the naked body not like pornography, not as a crime, but with joy and warmth."
On Monday, as a final installation, Tunick sent 105 women to the late painter Frida Khalo's house in Coyoacan as a tribute. The girls were selected for their long, straight hair. They were made to resemble Khalo with hair braided like a crown and faces painted with full eyebrows.
For a traditionally conservative society the installations were a liberating act of rebellion. For some it was a way of knowing they were alive. We come to this world naked. From day one we're covered in clothes, hiding our body's true beauty from foreign eyes. Maybe we're too concerned with covering our perceived imperfections. American writer John Updike once said, "Being naked approaches being revolutionary; going barefoot is mere populism."
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©2007 OhmyNews
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