Rockland County-based photographic artist Spencer Tunick will exhibit banners, photographs and video of his installations from around the world in a solo exhibition titled Naked Pavement at GARNER Arts Center, 55 W. Railroad Ave., Garnerville, New York, Sept. to Nov. 5. Tunick”™s large-scale photographic banners will be displayed in the Main Gallery space at Building 35, suspended overhead, both immersing the viewer and accentuating the industrial-era architecture of the newly restored exhibition space. Tunick”™s banners highlight the artist”™s treatment of the human body”™s surface as it appears on flowing material, revealing each artwork”™s connection to the impermanent body. Framed photographs will be on view in Building 35”™s adjoining Ned Harris Gallery, along with contact sheets and video from Tunick”™s 2014 installation at GARNER Arts Center documenting the experience of the installation”™s volunteer subjects. The opening reception is Thursday, Sept. 14, 6-8 p.m. Gallery hours are Fridays, 2-5 p.m. and Saturdays and Sundays, 1-5 p.m.
Spencer Tunick has documented the live nude figure in public with photography and video for over 30 years. Since 1994, he has organized more than 100 temporary site-specific installations encompassing dozens, hundreds or thousands of volunteer subjects. Tunick encourages us to appreciate the human body and view it as a form of art, just like a painting or a sculpture. While another artist might depict a scene with oil paint on canvas or sculpt their idea out of clay, Tunick uses bare skin and its countless different tones to create a sort of abstraction and new form. These photographic documents of human masses do not emphasize sexuality but challenge our view of nudity and public space.
