The Spencer Tunick Photos
It’s pretty hard to believe that the whole Spencer Tunick adventure was around a year ago now. I’m not saying it feels like it was just yesterday, but a year? Christ, that’s as disturbing a reminder of the unrelenting passage of time as having an adult conversation with someone who wasn’t even born in the 80’s.
So a year later, the photos are finally released and it’s about bloody time. My memories of it are faded now; I had to go back and read the post on my old blog about it. (It was actually the most viewed post on that blog, bringing in numbers I should have taken advantage of but I was too lazy to do anything about it. Oh well.) I actually went back and read some other people’s blogs from the time too in an attempt to remind myself of the buzz and excitement it generated. I was reminded of how liberating it was; how bizarre an experience it was to be naked with over 1000 people, including a hero of my televisual youth. Most of all though, I remember it as being perhaps the most fun I’ve ever had in my adult life. Nothing else has ever come close to the tingle I remember from the summers of my childhood. Despite (or maybe because of) the nudity, I remember this feeling of innocent fun, as strange as it sounds.
Bringing all these feelings back, I can’t help but feel so dissapointed now. The photograph above is the one Tunick chose to give to each of the participants and I don’t think it works. When compared to some of his other works and even some of the other Cork photos on the website or from what I remember of the event, there’s something lacking here. Maybe it’s the composition – the bodies seem completely seperate from the castle, the white roses dissappear against a background of pasty Irish flesh. It all feels so flat. The photograph below has richer colours, the bodies seem to flow towards the castle a bit more. It conveys the idea of a carpet of bodies better than the other photo, with the tree as an island among the sea of skin.
What’s somewhat galling – as a man – is that the women’s photo taken at White Street carpark the next day (below) is so much better. What’s even more galling, as a Corkman, is how much better the Dublin photos (further down the page) are.
What annoys me more than his poor choice of photograph though is the way they have chosen to display the whole body (if you’ll excuse the pun) of work. They’ve taken four photos each from the Dublin and Cork events, stuck them on a website with some videos and called it an “online exhibition.” That’s like the Cork Film Festival deciding to just show all the movies on YouTube. I mean, sure, you could get yourself some wine and cheese, invite a friend over and pretend you’re at an exhibition, but it’s not the same as an actual exhibition. I seem to remember Tunick saying he took the photographs the old fashioned way – with film – because it was his intention to blow these photographs up very large so the viewer would be absorbed into the – for want of a better word – skinscape. Though perhaps I did’t hear him say that. But if I’m wrong, why the hell would someone take photographs on film simply to make 1000 copies of a photograph (the quality of which, by the way, is a bit shit) and to put them on a website? That makes no sense whatsoever.
Now, before you say anything, I know we’re in the midst of a recession. One could argue that there aren’t the funds available for the Cork Midsummer Festival and the Dublin Docklands Authority to launch any sort of physical exhibition. They need an exhibition space in a gallery, they need to blow the photographs up to a large size, they need to staff the exhibition, they need to promote the exhibition; all these things add up. But I don’t think that’s a credible argument.
Since the recession hit (and even before that) there has been plenty of empty commercial space around Cork and Dublin. I’ve been saying for years (granted, mostly just to friends) that empty commercial spaces should be used as municipal gallery spaces and other such things until a more profitable use or buyer can be found for them. I know that these buildings are privately owned, but the councils or government could use tax relief schemes to provide incentives to the owners to make it more attractive for them to put these properties to municipal use rather than leaving them empty. So plenty of these properties could be used to house the exhibition.
The Midsummer Festival here has a large volunteer base, without which there’s no possible way the festival could function. Staffing the exhibition in Cork wouldn’t be a problem. And even if the volunteers couldn’t be found either here or in Dublin, surely it wouldn’t be hard to draw on the art student population of either city by working with the colleges of art and design. The colleges could give academic credit to students who assist with the exhibition in exchange for having their names associated with the biggest exhibition of the year in this country.
Which leads me to the promotion of the exhibition. Granted, adverstising can be expensive, but just look at how much media attention the original event garnered. There was even some media coverage for the release of the photos earlier in the week. I know because I was interviewed by the Six One News on RTE when I collected my print of the photo. So an exibition of the photos on public display in one or both of the major cities of the country would most definitely generate media interest. The thing practically sells itself. The formula is simple: very large pictures of lots of naked people + the chance to see someone you know in the nip = successful exhibition.
I’m not saying there would be no costs; of course there would. But with some commercial sponsorship and some of the advice above, I’m sure the two bodies (at least one of which is publicly funded) could have worked out a way to properly exhibit the photographs. Then again, it’s not surprising that some pubic bodies have managed to mess up something cultural. The whole ‘Cork, City of Culture’ thing was a thorough cock-up.
“But Eoghan,” you might say, “the Triskel Arts Centre in Cork are showing the photos to the public, projecting them onto a screen or wall.” This is true, but projection isn’t the same thing. You can’t get close to a projection because your shadow gets in the way. Would you be happy if the Louvre said they weren’t going to be showing the Mona Lisa anymore, but they will be showing a projection of it? No. It’s not the same thing. It doesn’t even come close.
I just find it disappointing that an event so enjoyable and extraordinary, bizarre and liberating, an event that could not have taken place in Ireland 15 or 20 years ago, has – due to laziness and a lack of imagination – produced something so underwhelming. It could have been so much more.
