With just weeks to go before Austria and
Switzerland host the Euro 2008 soccer tournament, American artist
Spencer Tunick organizes a crowd of nearly 2,000 models to pose
nude in the Austrian capital Vienna for his latest
artwork.
Just weeks before the launch of the European Championship
football tournament, about 1,800 volunteers gathered at Vienna's
Ernst Happel Stadium on Sunday to shed their clothing for American
photographer Spencer Tunick.
"It will be fun. Austria is very conservative. This might bring
more openness," said Michael, a 20-year-old Austrian who drove for
two hours to take part.
Speaking over a public address system, Tunick directed his
volunteer models, telling them to spread across different areas of
the stands and pose in a number of positions. The only rules: they
couldn't bring any clothing or "utensils" with them -- no
sunglasses, no lingerie -- they couldn't touch the playing field
and they weren't to move or laugh during the shoot.
"This very special ephemeral installation that we are inviting
you to be part of is devised to capture and combine the spirit of
sports, the grand sweeping waves of stadium architecture and the
abstract relation of the human form to modern structures," Tunick
said on his Web site.
The stadium will play host to seven European Championship games,
including the final. The tournament kicks off on June 7 in Basel,
Switzerland. And on Sunday, Tunick also had an artistic tie in to
the games: He had nude models posé with 1,000 soccer balls.
Tunick's performance took place as part of the European
Championship cultural program.
The photos taken by Tunick on Sunday will be put on display in a
public space at Vienna's Kunsthalle on June 23.
Tunick is world-famous for his photos of large masses of nude
people. One year ago he set a new world record by getting 20,000 Mexicans to
pose naked (more...) in Mexico City. In August, 600
people posed nude for Tunick on Switzerland's Aletsch glacier to
help draw attention to the problem of global warming.
