Alas, Poor Tunick

This just in: Spencer Tunick is still a hack.

Hold on ... receiving another report ... and the media still writes about him. That wouldn't bother me except that they neglect to point out that when he says his work "explores the relationships and comfort levels of people in a party atmosphere" he means to say "I'm doing the same thing again, and continuing to claim it's more than it is."

You can more or less write all future Spencer Tunick articles ahead of time: "Yesterday, Spencer Tunick photographed a large or small group of people without clothes. He then issued a press release claiming his work is greatly significant, despite the fact that you can't find a single reputable curator who's interested in it. (Of course, finding people to sell it -- that's easier, and a different thing altogether. Blue Dog paintings sell. Nagel prints sell.) The press release mentioned AIDS, global warming, issues of representation or something else not actually related to the work. Managing editors read four words into the release -- as far as the word 'nude' -- and assigned the story to a writer who copied and pasted in the text of a previous article, replacing only the location of the event and a quote from someone who may or may not have actually been there."

New York Magazine covers the latest event:

Spencer Tunick Got a Bunch of People Naked in Brooklyn the Other Night

Warning: the article has a teensy-tiny photo that is NSFW (not safe for work) viewing if you work somewhere where people have superhuman eyesight.

Best article on the general lameness of the Spencer Tunick experience:

Why doesn't Spencer Tunick get any respect?

The problem with Tunick as an artist—and the main reason, I think, most critics have ignored him—is that he doesn't seem to have anything to say. His installations are spectacular and attention-grabbing, but as for what it all means … well, to put it bluntly, I don't think it extends too far beyond, "Wow. That's a lot of naked people."

Above: on 86th Street.

Photography in the News, Incessant Hack Edition

To be said in best Inigo Montoya voice: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

Look, there's a long tradition relating to installation art. It means something. It's not just a word you can slap onto hackwork and expect it will improve it.

Spencer Tunick keeps doing the same thing. Over, and over. Often, when an artist does that, the work grows in context and gets deeper, more meaningful, getter. Not in this case. It's just the same thing over and over, and it becomes less interesting each time. Except he's taken to calling his snapshots "installations."

Tunick's work is now less remarkable than a Geico ad, and twice as annoying. I've written about his always-the-damn-same work previously, and I guess I can stop hoping it will ever stop, grow, improve or vary in the slightest.

Nude volunteers needed for Opera House strip

"New York photographer Spencer Tunick is looking for thousands of Australians to disrobe in the name of art on the steps of the Sydney Opera House."

You Could Google Ana Mendieta

Yes, today is the day when Spencer Tunick will pose a lot of people without clothes at the Sagamore Art Hotel in Miami Beach, Florida. I don't mind that, though I find the photographs less interesting than they should be.

What I do mind is his pretense that he's an "installation artist" or a "land artist" or anything but what he is. As always, the breathless press release spins out of control:

"Creating his seminal temporary site-specific landscapes involve the recruitment of many nude figures arranged in specific public sites and follow on the tradition of the popular art of the early 70's known as land art. ... The poetic whole culminating from this sea of individual figures which are arranged in a sculptural way, further challenges traditionally held stigmas associated with nudity, privacy and social and political issues surrounding art in the public sphere."

There are only a few things wrong with this -- he's not seminal, he doesn't actually follow in the tradition of land art, and there's no culminating involved. Also no challenging.

As a documentary-film person, I've watched all of the documentaries on Tunick. They reveal him to be what he is: a guy with a big schtick.

Northern Exposure

In the film Idiocracy it's revealed that the favorite film of the year 2505 will be a continous, 90-minute-long shot of a man's buttocks -- sort of a dumbed down version of Andy Warhol's 1965 film Taylor Mead's Ass.

Now Canadian television has taken the first steps toward that epic, and billed the adventure as an homage to photographer Spencer Tunick.

Nude St. John's waterfront TV shoot attracts 50

"Walsh intends to organize more naked film shoots across Canada. She said her next stop is Calgary, where she expects temperatures will be even lower than they were in St. John's. Other stops include Vancouver, Iqaluit and Toronto."