Women Strip “For Art’s Sake”

October 26, 2003

This morning I noticed one of the strangest news reports I’ve ever seen. It read, “450 Women Join Nude Photo Shoot in N.Y.” It was in The New York Times, but, in fairness, it was merely an Associated Press story that they decided to run.

It appears that an “artiste,” Spencer Turnick, has decided to attempt another one of his famous human installation exhibits on the peoples’ soil. How did he get 450 women to pose nude? It was simple. He told them it was art and they bought it. They all crowded around Grand Central Station at 3 am and he yelled instructions to them through a bullhorn requiring them to form geometric shapes with one another.

The shoot was supposed to be closed to the public (although, I do not know how 450 random women congregated in a building with a multitude of reporters could be considered “private”). However, the ‘artiste’ ensured that the experience would be viewed by the general population as he was busy snapping away photos the entire time. I am sure that they will soon be readily available at one of his upcoming shows.

The question that needs to be asked is why would these women consent to do such a thing? Here’s the analysis of one such dupe: “I love his art and I think he's creating an amazing thing -- something different, something fresh.” Oh, it’s fresh alright– or maybe not after one has been sweating around in the buff in a herd of flesh at 3 in the morning.

This story is a magnificent example of trendy conformity. Can you imagine 450 average women parading around in the nude for the purposes of mass photography for any other reason? If it was at gunpoint, I’d be willing to bet that you wouldn’t be able to achieve the same participation rate.

This should make a rather interesting experiment for our single male readers at home. Perhaps in the future, you can cloak your desires under the gauze of “art” and it could lead to welcome adventures in your spare time. If you encounter resistance, you can don a beret and say, “What about Turnick in New York? Together, Ismarelda, we can weld something sublime!” Who knows? Dumber things have worked than that.

Yet, although Turnick is certainly a maggot, we cannot deny that he is a clever maggot. Look at the language he uses to describe his past difficulties with the authorities who have occasionally arrested him after confusing his public nude exhibitions with being public nude exhibitions. He said, “In the past, the New York administration considered the body to be a crime, or pornographic. I hope this administration considers the vulnerability of the body.” Everyone considers the vulnerability of the body and that’s why clothes were invented in the first place.

We see here that Turnick also makes use of the old leftist emotional technique of the straw man argument. He implies that the laws are due to repression or misunderstanding on the part of the state rather than for obvious hygienic reasons. Of course this has nothing to do with the laws of the state. Does anybody really question why we should wear undergarments when using public transportation? Would you use a seat on a bus after three other people had sat on it completely naked and smeared gosh knows what all over it? Probably not. But to Turnick, that means there’s something wrong with you--not him.

What kind of art is this grand ride of bodacious skin? Well, today we’re not allowed to question the legitimacy of any vulgarity its producer labels art. We have to believe him or we are considered intolerant. A person can call the outcome of their own trip to the water closet art and, surprisingly, you’ll find few people who professionally disagree with you. In fact, there are many pop artists who have build careers constructing “pieces” from human byproducts.

I know that when a conservative questions anything involving art people get nervous and they immediately attack with the straw man of censorship. That absolutely does not apply to with me, however. For our purposes, concerns about what art is has nothing to do with censorship. In my mind, censorship is often a greater evil than that which it attempts to repress. My objection has to do with whether we should give such behaviors the patina of respectability that comes from describing them with the word art.

In my mind, there is no reason why we should accept his public frotteurism with being art. It isn’t and there is absolutely no justification for us not informing others as to what we really think. To say nothing is not to be tolerant. It is to be intolerant. As Roger Kimball stated:

“We seldom say what we think, for fear of giving offense. We are determined to respect everyone, but we have forgotten that respect has to be earned. Respect is not another word for tolerance or the appreciation of ‘alternative lifestyles and communities.’ This is a tourist's approach to morality. Respect is what we experience in the presence of admirable achievements, admirably formed characters, natural gifts put to good use. It entails the exercise of discriminating judgment, not indiscriminate acceptance.”

This man has no produced no admirable achievement. There is no reason why we should accept such time wasting as art. Why do some civic agencies allow him to use the public’s grounds? By doing so these agencies communicate that he is attempting a worthy project. It provides respectability where there should be none. Now I agree that we cannot, and should not, prevent him from ‘creating’ but we can sure as heck jointly point our fingers at him and have a good laugh at his expense–which is exactly what media coverage is designed to prevent us from doing. It’s an attempt to normalize such happenings. The best way to fight this process is to satirize the artist, his works, and the media that celebrate every abnormality they encounter.

In the end, I find this tale to be a microcosm of the cultural revolution. The standards of what is appropriate get lower and lower on a weekly basis. In 2003, one needs to be a professional limbo champion just to get below the bar of what’s acceptable in our society.

If I could pen a proper conclusion for the AP’s description of this event I’d write it in the voice of an ardent inter-disciplinary art studies student from Antioch: “Art no longer is the appropriate description for endeavors like Turnick’s. We need to reconstruct and simultaneously deconstruct the word ‘art’. Art alone is not enough. I propose a new word or phrase for his genius. I can think of no more fitting honor for this artiste than the creation of a new verbal category or way of knowing. Perhaps we should call his genre, “Pseudo-Masturbational Hobbies.” Eureaka! That’s it. Nothing sums up the man and his oeuvre better than ‘pseudo-masturbational hobbies.’”

And for the 450 women who participated in his Grand Central self-stimulation, we can label them with no better name than the pre-post-modernist title of “suckers.”

Bernard Chapin