Spencer Tunick is no stranger to provocative work: His career has largely focused on photographing large groups of nude people in public locations. In his photographs, masses of bodies resemble geographical features, and the viewer must do a double take to recognize them as groups of people—and this realization invites thoughtful consideration.
While Tunick's work can be considered an update on the long tradition of the nude as artistic medium, his recent photographs seem to indicate a shift toward expressing the role of the naked human form—nude as symbol, or as protest, rather than only natural element or landscape.
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One of Tunick's latest projects brought him to Colombia to call attention to the decades-long civil war there. The Colombian conflict, which began in the aftermath of a peasant uprising in the 1960s, has killed 260,000 people and uprooted 6.6 million over more than half a century. "It's an honor to be here at this moment when life is changing and hopefully a peace agreement will be signed," Tunick has said.
In June, more than 6,000 Colombian volunteers gathered in Plaza de Bolívar in Bogotá to be photographed by Tunick at dawn. He encouraged people of all ages and races, on all sides of the conflict, to take part. The multitude gathered at 2 a.m., standing calmly as one entity, filling the enormous plaza—side by side, even touching people who may have been their enemies. It was simple artistically yet breathtakingly profound politically: a silent but powerful cry for unity and peace.
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