Spencer Tunick NewcastleGateshead Hales Gallery is pleased to announce a solo show of new works by American artist Spencer Tunick. The exhibition focuses on Tunick's recent installation in NewcastleGateshead, which took place on the 17th July 2005. Assisted by a team of people wranglers, police and 1,700 naked volunteers, Tunick orchestrated a series of tableaux using naked bodies in the local environs. The exhibition at Hales is an opportunity to see the photographic record of this multi-local site-specific installation. The photographic works focus on the bodies delineating the recently developed areas of the city including Norman Foster's Sage centre and the Gateshead Millennium Bridge, a graceful structure across the river Tyne. These views are contrasted with two works that present Tunick's volunteers packed into a narrow street sandwiched between Victorian architecture common to many British port cities. Over the past 10 years Tunick has used naked bodies as raw material to intervene in chosen sites, this homogenised mass nudity transforms and revitalises already striking buildings, urban environments and natural landscapes. While Smithson spiralled land, Tunick covers roads, plazas and bridges with the naked bodies of his volunteers. Each individual becomes a tiny piece of texture "a blade of grass" in Tunick's over all composition. Tunick is intrigued by the idea of private faces in public places and each installation erodes traditionally held views on nudity and privacy. Nothing could be less of an aphrodisiac than the congregation of different shapes and sizes. The collective disrobing becomes a leveller, where individuality becomes blurred and irrelevant. Tunick was born in Middletown, New York in 1969. He now lives and works in Brooklyn. Spencer Tunick has exhibited widely all over the world. His installations have taken place all over Europe, North and South America and Australia. Tunick's recent installations and exhibitions include the Saatchi Gallery, London, Moca Cleveland 2004; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo 2004, the Lyon Biennial and BALTIC, NewcastleGateshead. Spencer Tunick's next installation is in San Sebastián, Spain (Basque Country) on 22nd April commissioned by Fundaci ón COFF. Tunick is currently showing at The Havana Biennale and in the Akureyri Art Museum, Iceland. Exhibition: 5 May – 3 June 2006 Gallery hours: Thu-Sat 12 - 6 pm, and by appointment Hales Gallery Tea Building 7 Bethnal Green Road GB-London E1 6LA Telephone +44 20 7033 1938 Fax +44 20 7033 1939 Email info@halesgallery.com www.halesgallery.com |
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