Ania Mikołajczuk (19) has wanted to be a photographer since she was a child. She used to take pictures and write stories about her dolls.
When she grew up, she made the decision to do a ‘proper’ course of study and was a judicial authority employee.
Seven months ago, her dream came true when she won a nude photography competition called ‘Fotocommunity’. In an interview with Renek Gaszewski, she explained that the nudity is not important.
As a woman she wants to photograph the body, and capture it’s feminine charm: “I like to take the viewer on a journey, my photos tell a story. You need to ask yourself what’s underneath the nudity.”
In their hundreds, they line up to take off their clothes - all in the name of art.
In the latest of a series of what one might call “strip-art” ventures, about 500 volunteers undressed on a cold and wet Sunday for an installation by New York-born artist Spencer Tunick.
A mostly young crowd posed on escalators at London’s Selfridges department store as well as in various parts of the store before the shop opened to the public.
Earlier this month, 160 volunteers took part in a “nude happening” run by the same artist to launch London’s Saatchi Gallery.
Tunick has held similar naked installations at outdoor venues in Montreal, Canada, and Sao Paolo, Brazil - attracting thousands of participants.
And the clearly willing participation of several hundred Britons in his UK installations is just one example of a trend that is putting paid to the image of the famous British, erm, stiff upper lip - despite the country’s off-putting weather.
Of course, the idea of stripping naked for art is hardly new, as many an art class life model can testify.
But mass nudity has become quite the fashion.
In February, 240 volunteers aged five to 95 agreed to be wrapped in cling film to allow plaster casts to be made of their bodies for an exhibition by sculptor Antony Gormley.
Their figures will form Gormley’s latest exhibition, Domain Field, which opens at the Baltic Arts Centre in Gateshead in May.
One of the volunteers, Paul O’Neill, said he was surprised at how normal the experience felt.
He said: “I had my doubts about whether I could go through with it but there was a definite moment of no return.
“Once I had passed it I had a wonderful - if slightly surreal - afternoon.”
Fellow volunteer Davie Hay said: “I found the experience very interesting, humorous, humbling, calming and something that I’m proud to have taken part in.”
Peter Wilson said he wanted the opportunity to take part in a large art project.
“I was hooked to the idea straight away and applied instantly,” he said.
“The casting itself was unusual, but a thoroughly relaxing and enjoyable experience.”
Tunick is becoming famous around the world for his series of installations photographing nude crowds in urban landscapes.
Bodies are composed into sculptural shapes and bizarre formations to feature on buildings, streets and cityscapes.
Mike Grenville, 53, who took part in the Saatchi event, said it had been a relaxed and positive experience.
He said: “It was just curiosity. I was interested to see how Tunick handled it and what people were there.
“We’re all basically the same in different shapes and sizes. Once you have taken all your clothes off, it’s a very friendly and communal feeling.”
But Ivan Massow, the former chairman of London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts, said Tunick’s Selfridges installation upset him because it was “so transient, it disappears, it is pure idea“.
He posed for two naked portraits because he wanted “to prove that concept or conceptual thought could meet canvas, something tangible”, he said.
The Selfridges event was a departure for Tunick, as he swapped the open air for the interior of the store.
He told the BBC: “Usually people do it outdoors because there is an amount of tension and vulnerability in the body that comes up against the concrete world.
“That tension creates a desire to be nude in a public place outside.
“I’m just happy that people wanted to engage in indoor space.”
Cate Blanchett has defended an artist whose portraits of nude children have sparked a censorship row in Australia.
Police shut down photographer Bill Henson’s exhibition, seized images and are also considering charging him.
His work, featuring naked 13-year-olds, was condemned by Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd as “revolting”.
But in an open letter, Blanchett and 42 other leading arts figures said the action risked damaging Australia’s cultural reputation.
‘Social freedom’
“The potential prosecution of one of our most respected artists is no way to build a creative Australia and does untold damage to our cultural reputation,” the letter said, addressed to Australia’s environment minister and the premier of New South Wales state.
“We should remember that an important index of social freedom, in earlier times or in repressive regimes elsewhere in the world, is how artists and art are treated by the state.
“We wish to make absolutely clear that none of us endorses, in any way, the abuse of children,” they said.
“Henson’s work has nothing to do with child pornography and, according to the judgment of some of the most respected curators and critics in the world, it is certainly art.”
The exhibition at the Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery in Sydney was shut down by police before it could even open last week after some people complained about photographs of naked 12 and 13-year-old boys and girls.
Police seized 20 photographs from the gallery, most of them of a 13-year-old girl.
They said were seeking to interview the subjects of the photos and their parents and were still investigating whether the photographs violate obscenity laws.
‘Innocence‘
Prime Minister Rudd has stood by his criticism saying: “I gave my reaction, I stand by that reaction and I don’t apologise for it and I won’t be changing it.”
“I am passionate about children having innocence in their childhood,” he said.
Australian child advocacy group Bravehearts labelled the photographs as child pornography and exploitation and have called for Henson and the gallery to be prosecuted.
Two other galleries in New South Wales state have since removed works by Henson from their walls.
Henson, 52, has not spoken publicly since the controversy erupted.
Some of us got to talking about privacy the other day, wondering how much of it we have today compared to a half century or more ago, and whether privacy is as valued today as it used to be. When you hear about kids sending nude photos of themselves to their friends on cell phones, you have to wonder whether they have any concept at all of discretion, let alone privacy. And it does seem that some people are willing to put all kinds of videos of themselves on an Internet site called YouTube.
A cautionary tale of one unintended consequence of all this was reported on Yahoo News recently. An American visitor to Prague in the Czech Republic passed a store window and was surprised to see a huge photo of a family he knew in Missouri. What was their photo doing there? He took a photo of the photo and sent it to the people back home. It turns out that this was the Christmas photo the family sent out last year and they also put it on their blog and on a few “social networking sites.”
Once something gets on the Internet, I guess, you never know where it will end up or what use someone will make of it. The storeowner in Prague said he thought it was just a computer generated image when he took it off of the Internet and had no idea it was an image of a real family. Meanwhile the Missouri folks said next time they post a photo online, they’ll do something to make it hard to reproduce the image.
Obviously, technology has moved faster than our ability to adapt to it. Our former habits of mind just don’t always take into account all of the possibilities that exist these days.
Even those of us who do think about protecting our privacy may not realize how quickly we agree to give it up.
For instance, when I shop at a supermarket and use that “club member” discount card, a computer is keeping track of what I buy and how often I come to the store. The store owners probably use such information for their own marketing purposes. The receipt prints out my name so the cashier can use it in wishing me a nice day, so if I happen to lose the receipt in the parking lot, somebody finding it will know what food and beverages I buy, what ailments I may be trying to cure with over the counter medicines, and how many more sandwiches I have to buy to get a free one.
The concern about identity theft and invasion of privacy can lead some enterprising people to capitalize on this worry. Last week I got some mail from a catalog I’ve ordered things from occasionally. The mail was a check for $7.75. A refund? Did I overpay for an order? I was curious so I looked at it carefully. I saw the statement, “By cashing or depositing this check you are purchasing a membership in ‘PrivacyGuard.’ Read important details on reverse.” On the reverse was a notice that by endorsing the check I would be signing up for this service, whatever it is, and that my credit card would be charged $159.99 for the first year’s service unless I called to cancel it. I decided to guard my privacy by tearing up the check.
When it comes to balancing privacy and technology, I guess it all comes down to using common sense and being aware of the age we live in, an age when an image or statement you think was uttered in privacy can circle the globe in moments. I don’t want to be paranoid about it, but I want to be sensible. Personally, I like privacy. Sometimes I keep my thoughts private. And sometimes I don’t. Like today.
Paris Hilton has opened the doors to her Hollywood home to reveal naked photos of herself, her extensive collection of dolls, and the gym she turned into a massive shoe closet.
The socialite moved into her new place 18 months ago and set about turning the “boring” and “stuffy” family home into a dream house.
And she agreed to act as tour guide when she invited Access Hollywood cameras into the private space before she jetted off to film her new reality show in Dubai.
Hilton showed off the Marilyn Monroe portraits that hang over her four-poster bed and shocked with candid poster-sized photos of the heiress naked, hugging a toy cat and sitting in a Hummer (vehicle) with her pet Chihuahua Tinkerbell poking out between her legs.
She chuckled, “That’s me in a Hummer with Tinkerbell, in the buff.”
