The bare-naked truth about Mexico

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They came, they saw, they stripped. Then Spencer Tunick took their picture.

Now the results of the disrobing of several thousand people in Mexico City’s Zòcalo, orchestrated by Tunick in May, are going on display. ‘Tunick antes del Zòcalo,’ an exhibition of 27 photographs as well as some video, opened Oct. 30 at the Museum of Mexico City, just a few blocks south of where the photos were taken. The images chronicle Tunick’s ongoing project (or ‘obsession,’ as he calls it) with photographing massive throngs of nude people in major world cities.

Depending on your point of view, Tunick is either a bold visionary who creates spectacular art out of the fusion of man-made landscapes with the architecture of the human body, or a one-trick pony whose creations smack more of Roger Corman than Michelangelo.

Newspapers have reported that Tunick now is thinking of returning to Mexico for an encore, to shoot some group nudes at the massive pre-Columbian pyramids of Teotihuacàn, about a 50-minute drive north of the capital.

‘I feel like Bob Dylan, Nirvana or Radiohead; I feel that this is the moment in which I am making good work and acquiring respect for it,’ Tunick was quoted as saying in the Mexico City daily newspaper Reforma. In a brief accompanying interview in Reforma, Tunick was dismissive of well-documented reports of how some male participants in the Mexican shoot, after getting dressed, stood around heckling their still-naked female counterparts. ‘There was never a situation of real threat,’ Tunick was quoted as saying.

Ah, spoken like a true humanist.

Posted by Reed Johnson in Mexico City