CityLife

Arts profile: Spencer Tunick

One of Spencer Tunick's previous installations

American artist Spencer Tunick must be the only person in Manchester this weekend happy to see a turn in the weather from glorious sunshine to overcast skies.

Tunick is preparing to stage one of his famous nude installations with 1,000 people over two days in eight locations around Greater Manchester – each of which are closely guarded secrets.

He and his cast of nudes take to the city over the weekend, the end result of which will be Everyday People, a photographic and film installation showing at The Lowry from June 12 to September 26.

Tongue in cheek, Spencer calls it ‘a naked tale of two cities’.  Like his previous projects in Mexico City or outside Sydney Opera House, Tunick’s latest gathering is a masterclass in organisation, but the one thing he never has control over is the weather.

“I’m very lucky that there are clouds,” says the New Yorker about Salford’s grey skies. “For me, direct sunlight is very difficult and you can completely lose a location.

“I always dream for cloudy days, and a little bit of rain is OK too. Knowing that this was a possibility is one of the reasons I decided to caravan the people around in heated buses – they will actually be naked for very brief periods of time.”

It isn’t only Manchester’s famously turbulent weather that has tempted Spencer to work with The Lowry in their 10th anniversary year.

The unique nature of the city’s landscape – where the architecture of the Industrial Revolution stands as a backdrop to a new progressive, cultural city – drew him here, and he credits first recognition of those changing landscapes to LS Lowry and his busy paintings of life in Salford and Manchester.

Not all the locations he hoped to use have worked out. Manchester United turned down a request to use the ground for logistical reasons, and another spot outside the M.E.N Arena – incorporating the old Boddingtons brewery chimney – was one of many spots scouted that didn’t make the shortlist.

The old chimneys are, says Tunick, “like monuments in this area. I think Lowry used to bring them in to his paintings and layer them even if they weren’t there.

“And now they’re just the opposite – the ones that are left are being taken away. There should be some sort of tour of what these factories were. These are symbols.”

The famous feeling of movement in Lowry’s paintings has been an inspiration too. Tunick, though, interprets that hustle and bustle in an historical sense – that being the movement of industry out and of culture into the city.

“Lowry was using the idea of multiple layers before many artists picked up in it,” he explains. “I saw this layering of worlds in his paintings, and when The Lowry took me on a two day tour of the area I wondered where the industry had gone.

“Instead, there was all this culture and leisure, and for me the body represents culture. From Lowry’s work, the clothed workers have left the city: the blacksmiths and factory workers. The new culture in the city is the universities, the gay and lesbian communities, the theatres.

“Making the city alive again is my translation of that movement. I really see that on the streets.”

Tunick has been photographing nudes since the early 1990s and decided to snap his first group shot – outside the United Nations building in New York – to keep up with the number of requests he had from willing volunteers.

America hasn’t always been keen on his projects. In 1999, in fact, he was arrested. But the attention that generated brought him to an international audience.

Vienna was one of the first cities to call. Commissions in Ireland, the UK, Switzerland, Amsterdam, South America, Germany and Spain have followed.

“I’m definitely not here fighting the government over locations,” laughs Tunick. “The Lowry’s curator, Kate Farrell, has been a miracle worker getting all the permissions.”

Tunick’s previous projects are a mix of solo nudes and mass gatherings – at their largest, 18,000 people strong. And one thing he’s never short of is volunteers. More than 5,000 applied to be part of Everyday People.

“People want to not only make it work but to also shout out a noble statement about themselves as individuals and being able to express themselves in a country,” adds Tunick.

“I think this is an amazing thing to do physically, but I keep doing it because I think the images have this power to them and every time I go to other countries it’s still fresh. Art makes us more accepting and colourful.”

Everyday People opens at The Lowry on June 12, 2010 (free). All photo shoots across the weekend are closed to the public and only accessible by invitation.