I thought I’d write the occasional ‘retro rant’ as I think of them, as in, stuff I’ve ranted in the past, that I’d like to rant blog style, that don’t fall into this month by month what’s happening in Sydney/to me thing I’ve taken to.
So this time last year Spencer Tunick came to Sydney and provided me with one of the most horrid experiences of my life to date.
I’m fond of nudity. I like being naked. I’m not a nudist, but when my flat-mates are out I enjoy walking round my house naked. I skinny dip with my friends any chance I get. I sleep naked… blah blah blah. Point is, naked, for me, = good. I’m also fond of art and quite taken by my city.
So, when Spencer Tunick decided to do a Mardi Gras photo thingy on the Opera House steps and needed a whole bunch of people to volunteer to be models and pose naked on the steps I was pretty keen and thought it would be a bit of fun. I didn’t know heaps about Spencer Tunick but I’d seen some of his snaps and thought it was an okay gimmick. Lots of naked people, together, at a landmark. It looks impressive. Not sure what it says exactly but the sea of flesh is evocative and the landmarks themselves are beautiful and there’s a rhythm to them and a repetition and connection to spaces and a sort of freedom-from-the-body thing going on. I was stupid. I should have read up on him a bit and discovered the dude is a jerk.
I also thought the general idea of this pic could have been really nice. It was supposed to be a Mardi Gras event. I figured there was a gay/straight/queer/whatever, we’re all here, naked, unguarded, in OUR city, side by side, standing together, people power/solidarity thing that could have felt really powerful and buzzy. I’ve felt collective-nudity-power buzz before too. Before the Iraq war I attended a naked protest where a whole bunch of women got together and spelt out ‘No War’ with their naked bodies for a photograph (I was in the r) and it was awesome. There was excitement and purpose and a huge women-bonding/fighting feeling in the air. It was kind of euphoric and magical. Now, I’m not saying Spencer’s stupid photo had to give me buzz and I’m some sort of nudity-buzz junkie chasing a thrill. I didn’t mind that there was no feeling, just would have been nice… anyway, the event was unpleasant. We were treated like cattle and did free work (that’s what volunteering is) unthanked, for 5 hours, It was fairly cold, being 4am, and he could have taken 15 minutes to do a little pep this-is-what-we’re-here-for spiel. Instead, the event felt hollow and yuck. Sadly though, for me, that wasn’t the worst bit.
Now, to set the scene, to add insult to injury, I’d had a REALLY shit parade night for Mardi Gras. I don’t feel like writing about it, but it sucked. So I was hoping this event was to be my ridiculous-has-fun-celebrating-Mardi-Gras thing. And so when it turned yuck I felt completely destroyed. The really yuck bit was, Spencer, decided to tell us that we have to kiss the person we came with… “If you came with a lover, kiss your lover, if you came with a friend, kiss your friend, if you came alone, kiss a stranger!” Cute on paper right? A whole bunch of people embracing/kissing… a love shot… an intimate shot… cept, he didn’t say, and needed to say, “if anyone isn’t comfortable with this, they can sit this shot out.” Without that sentence I didn’t feel like I could back out and didn’t. Not to mention, the call out was for people comfortable getting naked, no-where were we briefed we might be asked to do this. Okay, so the, ridiculous-gets-in-a-horrid-situation isn’t entirely Spencer’s fault, it has a little to do with ridiculous-can’t-say-no, but still, Spencer put me in this situation. I had come to the event with my long-time friend (and I mean long-time in the platonic sense, not in the Sontag-and-Liebovitz sense, my flat mate and I have been friends since we were 14, and she’s straighty-180) who I’d just moved in with. We thought it would be a fun, bonding, ‘yay we’re flatmates and it’s Mardi Gras’ thing to do together. So I was uncomfortable with the idea of embracing and kissing my friend. In the end Spencer said it was okay if we went cheek to cheek, but cheek to cheek still meant our bodies came breast to breast… and I hug my flat-mate from time to time but hugging clothed, and hugging naked are two very different things. The awkward part was, in the queue to get into the event we’d run into an ex-boyfriend of hers. They were both super cool about it and totally fine with the naked thing… but that meant we were a three when Spencer came to ask for the kiss shot. We decided to both kiss my flat mate on either cheek and have a girl-in-the-middle-of-affection-from-best-friend-and-ex-boyfriend tableaux. This seemed to work for us three and we were not without discomfort about the whole thing but were reasonably happy. Then this old man walks up to us, he’s at the event alone, he reads my flat-mate and her ex-boyfriend as a couple and me as the 3rd wheel (stupid heteronormative bastard, the ex was the 3rd wheel, alright so flatmate and I were’t a couple but we were very much at the event as a pair grrr) asks if I’d join him for the shot. I don’t know how to say no, and I hated the thought of someone being stuck alone, cut adrift around a sea of pairs… so I said yes. Now, that was a bad call on my part, but I still thought I could design this embrace as I chose, to my level of comfort, and I think so did he, I don’t think this guy meant to creep me out. So we were going to have our arms around each other’s shoulders as our version of strangers embracing. Spencer said no to that, everyone’s cheek was to rest on their partner’s cheek if they weren’t going to snog for him, so, as I explained before, cheek to cheek meant my breasts were resting on this old mans chest. It was the most awful, uncomfortable thing to endure and Spencer made us hold the pose for about 10 minutes while he took his shots. For 10 whole minutes I had to listen to this poor guy’s, who probably couldn’t help it, breath quicken in my ear, and I could feel his pulse quicken through my breast. It felt so awful and we couldn’t even look each other in the eye when Spencer finally set us free from that hold. That’s what happened. 8 months later we got a copy of the print in the mail as our payment for our services. He didn’t use the fucking lover one. It’s a really shit photograph. It’s up the Opera House’s nose and you get no sense of the beauty of the building. The Harbour Bridge is cut off and its just a crap photo. So Spencer Tunick made my last-years-Mardi-Gras more sucky than it already was and he’s a shit photographer anyway. Fuck you Spencer Tunick, you inconsiderate, megalomaniac, talentless, jerk.
Anyway, Mardi Gras 2011 just started, hopefully this year will involve less jerks (and humiliating traumatic experiences) and more fun. Happy Mardi Gras! Be safe, and don't volunteer to help out fuck-wit artists!
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