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The bare truth: mass nude photographer set to expose Trump's politics

Vikas Kumar | Updated on: 10 February 2017, 1:49 IST

Imagine a protest. A silent, almost still protest. A protest with a sea of people.

Now, imagine all of them stark naked.

Photographer Spencer Tunick specialises in nudes, but not the regular artsy beautiful woman kind. Tunick celebrates every body type, by blending them into one another. In the thousands. As he defines it himself, his photos are that of "individuals en masse, without their clothing, grouped together, metamorphosed into a new shape."

Nude members of the public take part in "Mardi Gras: The Base", an art installation by artist Spencer Tunick, at the Sydney Opera House on 1 March, 2010 in Sydney, Australia. (Don Arnold/WireImage)
Nude models directed by US photographer Spencer Tunick hold bottles in a Bourgogne (Burgundy) wineyard near Macon, central- eastern France, on 3 October, 2009, for a giant photograph during an operation with Greenpeace. (Jeff Pachoud/AFP)

His latest project, titled ' Everything She Says Means Everything', enlists 100 women in Cleveland to hold up large mirrors while in the nude. The mirrors, according to Tunick's website, reflect "the knowledge and wisdom of progressive women and the concept of 'Mother Nature'." Since this isn't political enough already, this "knowledge and wisdom" (or blinding light from the sun) will be reflected at visitors to the Republican National Convention, as a sign of protest.

Tunick, in an interview with Cleveland Scene, while explaining why women need to speak up against Donald Trump, said, "The work is for my daughters, for their future, for them not to grow up in a society with hate, for them to grow up in a world with less violence toward women and more opportunities for them."

The photoshoot will take place on 17 July, 2016, the day before the Republican National Convention is set to take place in Cleveland.

And wouldn't that be effective. Because if one were to go by Tunick's work so far, it completely normalises the human body by placing it in a cluster. A cluster where age, sex, race and body type melt into a homogenous mix of human bodies. And what better way is there than that to reject politics that attempt to divide us?

Text by Durga M Sengupta

Members of the public take part in a naked installation for American artist Spencer Tunick at the Big Chill festival near Ledbury in Herefordshire on August 8, 2010. (Leon Neal/AFP)
Controversial Artist/Photographer, Spencer Tunick, who's known for his photographs of mass gathering of nude people in public spaces is photographed in his studio in Tribeca. (David Howells/Corbis via Getty Images)
Hundreds of naked volunteers pose nude for an installation of US photographer Spencer Tunick, 06 August 2006 at the Ehrenhof museum complex in Duesseldorf, western Germany, on the building's roof is seen the sculpture "Aurora" by German artist Arno Breker. (Volker Hartmann/AFP/Getty Images)
Thousands of people pose in the nude for an installation by US photographer Spencer Tunick, 6 May, 2007 at the Zocalo square in Mexico City (Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP)
More than 1,000 nude Israelis pose for American art photographer Spencer Tunick's first Middle East mass shoot on September 17, 2011 at the shores of the Dead Sea, Israel. (Uriel Sinai/Getty Images)
Naked volunteers pose for the US photographer Spencer Tunick in the ice-cold Swiss glacier of Aletsch, the largest in the Alps, as bakground for an environmental campaign about global warming 18 August 2007 near the mountain resort of Bettmeralp. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP)
More than 18,000 people participate in Spencer Tunick Mexico City Installation (Victor Chavez/WireImage)
First published: 19 May 2016, 12:35 IST