Nudity and Football. An Obvious Match for Euros

By: Laurie | April 16th, 2008

Do you enjoy a little exhibitionism to go with your football? Then grab your passport and head to Austria, because Spencer Tunick is coming.

What do you mean Spencer who? You know exactly who I’m talking about. The guy who likes to photograph vast numbers of naked people in the name of “art.”

(I don’t think that’s what my mother-in-law would call it. But Spencer? We at World Cup Blog and The Offside are entirely behind you. Figuratively speaking.)

New York contemporary artist Spencer Tunick has gained notoriety worldwide for photographing thousands of people in the nude. Now he’s planning to pack a Vienna soccer stadium with 2,008 naked fans in the run-up to the Euro 2008 tournament.

Austria’s national railway said Thursday it will offer free travel to the first 2,008 men and women who sign up to bare it all for the May 11 spectacle, which will be held rain or shine.

Tunick wants to pose them on the field inside Ernst Happel Stadium, where the tournament final will be played. Austria and Switzerland are co-hosting the event, which runs from June 7-29.

I’m thinking May 11 will be an interesting time to work on Austria’s national railway.

And I am also loving the way this is explained:

Murschetz said the Austrian capital thinks Tunick’s unusual genre is perfect for the European soccer championship “because he spreads a strong sense of community spirit” in the same way that the sport does.

“This very special ephemeral installation that we are inviting you to be part of is devised to capture and combine the spirit of sports, the grand sweeping waves of stadium architecture and the abstract relation of the human form to modern structures,” organizers said in a statement.

A very special ephemeral installation. That’s exactly how I would have described it.

So mark your calendars, ladies and gentleman: May 11. It’s the least you can do to support the tournament.

(Source: The Beautiful Game, who wisely warns against doing a google image search for “Spencer Tunick” while you are at work. But if you’re at home and not offended by a little (or not so little) full frontal, the photos really are fascinating.)

(This was first posted on the Euro2008 page at World Cup Blog, which should, of course, be your first stop for all Euro 2008 information, gossip and snark.)