4/23/2015
National Gallery of Australia launches naked art tour - CNN.com
National Gallery of Australia launches its first ever
naked art tour
By Karla Cripps, CNN
 Updated 0054 GMT (0854 HKT) March 27, 2015
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Australia's naked art tours 5 photos
Naked art tours – This
is what lies in store for participants attending the upcoming naked tours of the "
Turrell: A Retrospective" exhibition at Canberra's National Gallery of Australia. In this photo, art fan
artist Robert Owens' Sunrise #3 during a naked exhibition tour at Sydney's Museum of Contempor
Australia in 2012.
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4/23/2015
National Gallery of Australia launches naked art tour - CNN.com
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(CNN)—Imagine this scene.
You're checking out an exhibition by a well-known American artist, admiring his life's work
in a dazzling retrospective that's earning rave reviews from critics.
You look down.
Suddenly, you regret skipping that last waxing appointment -- you're completely naked.
You look around the room and see that everyone else viewing the exhibition is also nude -some likely wishing the room wasn't so cold.
It's a situation 100 uninhibited art fans taking part in the National Gallery of Australia's first
ever naked art tour will soon find themselves in as they view the Canberra venue's current
exhibition, "James Turrell: A Retrospective."
The retrospective highlights the 70-year-old American light artist's 50 years of work and
includes installations purpose-built for Canberra, as well as drawings, prints and
photographs.
Being nude isn't a prerequisite to viewing the show as the naked tours are taking place
after hours on three days only -- April 1-2 -- and only open to those 18 and older.
No need to bother building up the courage to strip down for this one. Both of the tours,
each of which welcomes 50 guests, are already fully booked, says the museum.
"The nude is really important to art history"
When visiting Canberra last year, Turrell
reportedly encouraged the gallery to allow
visitors to experience his works naked, as was
previously done in Japan.
"We drink light through the skin as Vitamin D
... so we are literally light eaters," said Turrell.
"It's part of our diet."
An installation from James Turrell's Ganzfeld collection.
The artist is famed for his use of light and space.
The naked tours are a collaboration with
Melbourne-based artist Stuart Ringholt, who
has led similar experiences at Sydney's
Museum of Contemporary Art and Tasmania's
Museum of Old and New Art.
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National Gallery of Australia launches naked art tour - CNN.com
Ringholt's work often explores personal and social themes such as fear and
embarrassment through absurd situations or amateur self-help environments -- including
nude gallery tours.
"It seems absurd to bring a bunch of beautifully dressed people into the gallery when we
can bring in a bunch of nude people," said Ringholt in an interview with the Canberra
Times.
"We seem to forget the nude is really important to art history. The museum in itself is
reductive -- we have the idea of the white cube but why have we then reduced the viewer
through their clothing?"
In addition to Japan and Australia, other galleries around the world have hosted similar
tours.
In 2013, Vienna, Austria's Leopold museum offered a special after-hours showing of its
"Nude Men From 1800 to the Present Day" exhibit, which welcomed more than 60 naked
art lovers.
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National Gallery of Australia launches naked art tour - CNN.com
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