Get naked: Spencer Tunick heading to Munich

If you happen to spot a thousand naked people in Munich this summer – don’t worry. It’s just American artist Spencer Tunick visiting Bavaria with his latest mass nude photo shoot.

The New Yorker was invited to apply his interest in mass nude photo shoots in Munich by the Bavarian State Opera during the opening of the city’s Opera Festival on 23 and 24 June.

For his new project inspired by Richard Wagner’s Ring cycle, Tunick will invite at least a thousand Bavarians for a ring-shaped installation in front of the National Theatre and a few other shoots in downtown Munich.

“Tunick is in Munich – get your kit off!” Tunick said in an interview.

The artist is looking for “normal people… students, musicians, librarians, bricklayers,” to take their clothes off for the sake of art.

According to the Bavarian State Opera’s idea, Tunick’s Ring project will take place alongside a new production of The Ring of the Nibelung by producer Andreas Kriegenburg.

“Andreas Kriegenburg primarily tells his version of The Ring of the Nibelung by means of the performers’ stage and gesture movements in addition to their singing. This produces an interesting equivalence to Spencer Tunick’s human body installations. That is why it was an obvious choice to show these two projects for the Opera Festival”, says Nikolaus Bachler, Manager of the Bavarian State Opera.

The Ring project will become the first of its kind to be realized in Germany, and the second work by Tunick to be created in the country. “Whenever I have the chance to work in Germany, I seize it,” the artist says. His previous German job was in 2006 at the Museum Kunstpalast in Dusseldorf.

Tunick’s trademark style emerged in 1994 when he photographed 28 naked people in front of the United Nations office in New York. Since then he has created and photographed over 75 human installations around the world. The largest nude installation included almost 18,000 people in Mexico City in 2007. Other locations include the Dead Sea and Sydney Opera House.

Dead Sea, Israel 2011 (Photo from www.spencertunick.com)

Sydney, Australia 2010 (Photo from www.spencertunick.com)