MORE THAN 1,000 Corkonians have taken up the Dare to Bare challenge from American photographer Spencer Tunick. They will strip off for one of his striking images in the grounds of Blarney Castle in the early hours of tomorrow morning.
The project is part of the Cork Midsummer Festival and festival director William Galinsky confirmed that the invitation to people to participate in the nude photograph had been hugely subscribed with the organisers closing the list for registration on Friday.
The Cork installation is one of two that Tunick is doing in Ireland and will be followed on Saturday by an installation in the Dublin docklands, sponsored and organised by the Dublin Docklands Development Authority.
While the exact numbers who are set to participate in the Cork project won’t be known until tomorrow morning and participants are counted, it’s understood that over 1,000 people have signed up to be involved in what is Tunick’s first back-to-back city art project.
Tunick has organised over 75 site-specific installations in New York, London, Amsterdam, Rome, Barcelona, Montreal, Melbourne and Buenos Aires as well as Mexico City in May 2007 where some 18,000 posed nude for him in the city’s principle square, the Zocalo.
The projects in Cork and Dublin come just weeks after 41-year-old Tunick photographed almost 2,000 people nude in the Ernst Happel Stadium in Vienna to mark the holding of the European Football Championships.
Welcoming the Cork project, Cork Midsummer Festival director William Galinsky, writing in his festival blog, described participating in a Spencer Tunick installation as “a life-affirming and, perhaps, life-changing experience.
“There are few contemporary artists who have so managed to capture the spirit of our age. Spencer’s work is a celebration of the human body, of the landscapes which surround us and of the power we all have to change the world,” he said.
Those participating in the Cork project have been asked to attend from 3am tomorrow and they’ve been advised that the art event will last until approximately 8.30am with all those who participate being sent a photograph of the installation.
The Cork Summer Midsummer Festival kicked off yesterday afternoon when thousands attended the Lord Mayor’s Picnic in Fitzgerald Park. The festival is expected to attract thousands over the coming three weeks to a variety of venues around the city.
Among the other highlights are a production of Conor McPherson’s The Seafarer, Corcadorca’s production of Eugene O’Neill’s play The Hairy Ape in the docklands and numerous acts in the Spiegeltent in Emmet Place. For further information see www.corksummerfestival.com.