To get everyone in the mood to be nude, the internationally renowned American artist and photographer Spence Tunick is holding a projected video exhibition at Brisbane Powerhouse, featuring some of the work he shot in Brisbane last year.

That one was called TIDE and was created in November 2023 as a precursor to the work he will soon be shooting, featuring thousands of naked people on the Story Bridge.

This year marks the artist’s 30th anniversary of documenting the live nude figure in public with photography and video, boldly using bare bodies en masse to create landscapes that flow, contort and meld together.

Tunick has organised more than 100 installations around the globe using dozens, hundreds or thousands of participants, his camera recording these captivating art events.

That he has chosen Brisbane for two major projects is significant and it’s worth reflecting that Brisbane is now well and truly on the international arts map. Proof of that, for starters, is that Tunick has signed on to collaborate with Brisbane Powerhouse on two major projects.

The next one will come hot on the heels of the Brisbane Festival appearance of Jean Paul Gaultier’s Fashion Freak Show, an Australian exclusive of a global hit that not many countries have yet seen.

And soon Brisbane will be one of only three cities, after Hong Kong and Atlanta, to be blessed with the ballet Coco Chanel: The Life of a Fashion Icon, a co-production with Queensland Ballet.

Brisbane is, it seems, the place to be, and Brisbane Powerhouse’s groundbreaking Melt Festival, celebrating queer arts and culture, is also getting us attention.

Brisbane Powerhouse and Melt Festival are presenting TIDE, Spencer Tunick’s first Australian exhibition, from September 28. This projected video exhibition is from his TIDE series, created during that visit last year.

“Creating TIDE was a very special experience, and I hope the exhibition will speak to diverse groups of people,” Tunick says. “It is a privilege to be making art that centres on the LGBTQIA+ community with all its beauty and vibrancy.”

His aim was to produce an installation celebrating diverse bodies and one that represents a more accepting and equal future. Tunick’s striking and surreal photographic artworks of this intimate installation will be showcased in the TIDE single channel video exhibition which includes footage and stories that capture the empowering and poignant experiences of those who participated.

TIDE is the perfect prelude to RISING TIDE, the monumental second installation that Tunick is creating for Melt Festival 2024, which will take place across Brisbane’s iconic Story Bridge on Sunday, October 27. The bridge will be temporarily closed for this major art event, which will feature thousands of live nude figures in celebration of diversity, equity, inclusion and Brisbane’s vibrant LGBTQIA+ community and allies.

Tunick is still seeking participants for RISING TIDE on October 27. Each selected participant will receive a print of the final artwork, taken by Tunick, as a gift of appreciation from Brisbane Powerhouse and Melt.

Submissions for Spencer’s previous Brisbane installation TIDE will be automatically included in RISING TIDE.

Brisbane Powerhouse program manager and TIDE and RISING TIDE curator Emmie Paranthoiene says “many of the participants at TIDE expressed the joy and positive power of acceptance they felt from taking part in the installation”.

“We hope that thousands more people will have the same experience when Spencer creates RISING TIDE on the Story Bridge,” she says.

TIDE by Spencer Tunick, September 28 to November 10, Brisbane Powerhouse, New Farm, brisbanepowerhouse.org

RISING TIDE, October 27, Story Bridge, Brisbane. Register to participate at: melt.org.au/spencertunick

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