spencer tunick takes nude installation to facebook and instagram's new york HQ

artist spencer tunick has staged more than 75 large-scale installations comprising hundreds or thousands of nude participants in both urban and natural settings across the globe. however, in order to share his art on instagram and facebook, he is tasked with meticulously censoring himself by individually blurring each and every nipple and, even when he does, the photographs are often flagged and eventually removed. ‘the work I’m allowed to post is fundamentally different from the work I make,’ tunick explains. ‘to me, every pixelated nipple only succeeds in sexualizing the censored work. as a 21st century artist, I rely on instagram. it’s the world’s magazine and to be censored on it breaks my spirit.’

image by fay fox

at sunrise on june 2, 2019, tunick gathered 125 people to pose nude in front of facebook and instagram’s headquarters in new york city for the national coalition against censorship’s (NCAC) #wethenipple campaign. participants in the art action challenged social media censorship by covering their nipples with stickers of photographed male nipples — an act to ‘highlight the rigid — and anachronistic — gender inequality in existing nudity policies’. the imagery celebrates the work of feminist artist micol hebron, who created a male nipple pasty in 2014 and encouraged fellow artists to use it to cover female nipples on social media.

image by fay fox

NCAC has written an open letter to facebook, parent of instagram, calling for a change in the polices of both social media platforms to allow photographic artistic nudity. both NCAC and tunick are calling on the companies to follow a path taken by youtube over a decade ago, which changed its terms of service to allow artistic nudity. over 250 signatories, including prominent artists, museums and arts organizations have signed on to the campaign. read NCAC’s official letter to facebook here.

image by spencer tunick / via instagram