Photographer Spencer Tunick, who is famous for taking photographs of nude crowds at sites around the world, is planning to bring his project to Israel.
“He has not decided on a site yet, but when there’s a lot of press coverage, he is less likely to come somewhere,” Harry Fruchter, Tunick’s producer in Israel, told the Jerusalem Post. “He’d like to work without any outside influences. If he can’t find that kind of situation, when he comes, he will probably be less cooperative.”
Should he confirm plans to work in Israel, reports say likely sites Tunick might chose are Tel Aviv or the Dead Sea. Israel’s Tourism Ministry and the Tel Aviv Municipality appeared excited at the prospect of a Tunick visit, calling it good for the image of the country and the city. However, from the floor of the Knesset, religious lawmakers blasted the idea. Some said a photo of a mass of nude Jews would be reminiscent of the Holocaust. Others called it prostitution.
Tunick recently photographed 5,200 nude Australians on the steps of the Sydney Opera House, one of 75 locations at which he has taken nude photos of crowds. “Ohio 1,” his 2004 photo of hundreds of naked Clevelanders outside the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, hangs in the Cleveland Museum of Art.
