Dead Sea nude photo reaches dead end
Source: Agencies |
May 13, 2011, Friday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
NAKED crowds in public places have made American photographer Spencer Tunick world famous, but his plan for an installation featuring hundreds of nude Israelis floating in the Dead Sea has hit money problems.
His photographs of hundreds of naked men and women of "all religions, shapes and sizes" in locations such as the Sydney Opera House and Switzerland's Aletsch Glacier have won critical acclaim and attracted fans worldwide.
"It's very insignificant money," the artist told a Tel Aviv news conference. "But it's the naked body in a public space," he said, hinting at disapproval of his art in the Jewish state.
Tunick and his eight assistants need US$60,000 to pay the logistics costs of an installation and photo shoot in September or October at the lowest point on Earth, where the Dead Sea is drying up at the rate of one meter a year.
The artist, who is Jewish, has not yet decided what his Dead Sea installation will feature. He would like to show his nude multitude floating in the extreme buoyancy of the ultra-saline water and covered in its famous health-giving black mud.
But a year of fund-raising by Tunick's friend and Israel-based associate Ari Fruchter, together with the Tel Aviv consultancy Ben Or, has managed to raise only US$45,000. With 25 days to go to their deadline, the team are calling for online donations.
Neither Tunick nor his Israeli associates were able to explain why it was so hard to raise the money. "You just don't get a clear answer," Fruchter said.
But a representative of Israel's ultra-Orthodox Shas party - a member of the ruling coalition - made it plain his constituents were categorically opposed to the art proposal.
"This is artistic beastliness," veteran Shas lawmaker Nissim Zeev said.
His photographs of hundreds of naked men and women of "all religions, shapes and sizes" in locations such as the Sydney Opera House and Switzerland's Aletsch Glacier have won critical acclaim and attracted fans worldwide.
"It's very insignificant money," the artist told a Tel Aviv news conference. "But it's the naked body in a public space," he said, hinting at disapproval of his art in the Jewish state.
Tunick and his eight assistants need US$60,000 to pay the logistics costs of an installation and photo shoot in September or October at the lowest point on Earth, where the Dead Sea is drying up at the rate of one meter a year.
The artist, who is Jewish, has not yet decided what his Dead Sea installation will feature. He would like to show his nude multitude floating in the extreme buoyancy of the ultra-saline water and covered in its famous health-giving black mud.
But a year of fund-raising by Tunick's friend and Israel-based associate Ari Fruchter, together with the Tel Aviv consultancy Ben Or, has managed to raise only US$45,000. With 25 days to go to their deadline, the team are calling for online donations.
Neither Tunick nor his Israeli associates were able to explain why it was so hard to raise the money. "You just don't get a clear answer," Fruchter said.
But a representative of Israel's ultra-Orthodox Shas party - a member of the ruling coalition - made it plain his constituents were categorically opposed to the art proposal.
"This is artistic beastliness," veteran Shas lawmaker Nissim Zeev said.
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