Getting Naked in the Name of Art

There’s a hell of a lot of things I would rather be doing at 4am. The most obvious thing that comes to mind is SLEEP. But for some reason on this, the first day of Autumn I have decided to line up at Circular Quay in Sydney’s touristy of tourist traps. Why? Getting naked in the name of art, of course.

Spencer Tunick is a name well known in the world of art installations. He’s that guy that has the power to make thousands of people shed their clothes at the, er, drop of a hat. He’s been commissioned by the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras to capture Sydney in its barest of forms, free of prejudice and social class. We are all together, we are one. And we are about to get naked.

A few months ago rumours started circulating that Mr. Tunick will be in town so I quickly signed up. It was easier than I expected: I followed a link from the Mardi Gras website, filled in the form and hey presto. Last week I get final confirmation of the location of the shoot. All I needed to do was fill out the release form and I was ready to roll.

But waking up at 3am to get to Circular Quay by 4am is tough. Oh boy is it tough. And it’s cold. We jump in a cab at this ungodly hour and the cabbie says that there’s traffic chaos up ahead and do we know why this is so.. “Photo shoot, innit?”. The less said the better. What really made me cringe was the queue: stretching from the entrance of the Opera House it bowed all around the Quay and to just outside the MCA. That’s a long queue. And queueing isn’t exactly a great way for me to kill time. Seeing as it’s Mardi Gras there’s all sorts of characters: mature-age trannies, drunk party people, exhibionists, art lovers, foreign tourists, the beautiful locals and even some normal people. As we snake our way to the entrance we are greeted by people that appear to know exactly what they’re doing: megaphones in hand they instruct the masses to head towards the Botanic Gardens and wait for further instructions. No one is really ‘with it’ at 4am but there’s a coffee cart set up to elevate the alertness to normal. A guy streaks and gets a roaring cheer. We will soon be joining him.

Megaphone Guy instructs the ever-expanding crowd to grab plastic bags to keep our clothes in and gives us directions to the toilets. After waiting around for approximately 90 minutes we hear from Mr. Tunick himself. “Okay guys, here’s what’s gonna happen…” and launches into a do’s and don’ts: Do be completely naked. Don’t get naked until we tell you to. Do have a good time. Don’t hesitate to ask questions if you’re unsure, etc.

It’s cold and cloudy but by now it’s on the verge of sunrise and sense of excitement hangs heavy in the air. Finally we get the announcement. “Okay people, it’s time. You can now undress”. Within a minute everyone in the gardens went from rugged up to being as the good Lord intended: au natural with nothing to hide. There’s a few nervous laughs but with a few thousand people being naked around you it quickly becomes the norm. There’s all shapes, sizes, ages, sexualities and skin colours. There’s tattoos and piercings, there’s smooth and hairy, there’s tanned and toned and there’s pale and jiggly. There’s even brand new parents with a baby that could not have been more than 4 weeks old. Spencer announces that we’re to line up on the steps of the Opera House and we comply. Everyone moves along and we all embrace this moment; for it’s a pretty awesome moment. This is mass nudity in the name of art. And it’s happening in my hometown.

From his podium Spencer dictates that the back row move forward, the cluster at the front spread out and the group in the middle face him. He tells us to look forward and keep our hands down. Silence. The first roll of film has been used. This proceeds for almost an hour with different poses; the masses facing the Opera House, and then him; then we put our hands up; he changes a roll of film, then we lie down; then the couples embrace; then we change poses again, he reloads the film and on it goes.

By now it’s at the special time of the day when the suits are on their way to work and whenever a ferry passes we all wave and laugh. Yeah, we’re better than you. You want to be us. The helicopters circle and the press are kept at bay about fifty meters from the entrance.

After about 90 minutes of all this the first installation is done. We’re free to go as Spencer is moving on to his second installation: inside the Opera House. For this you need a ticket. Which of course we don’t have. There’s also a third installation to take place in the Botanical Gardens and Spencer needs about 400 men and 400 women. If I didn’t have to be somewhere else I would gladly have stayed. The feeling of being completely naked with 5200 other people is quite liberating. We stroll back to the Gardens completely relaxed, but as soon as people start getting dressed a feeling of awkwardness becomes apparent: Those that were naked a second ago are wearing their designer rags again and the social classes slowly creep back.

For that 90 minutes we were all the same. We were all friends. We made conversation and smiled at each other and all shared the same laughs. Now we are all dressed and once again strangers.

We go our own way.

Was it worth it? Fuck yeah it was.