Nudes check out nudes at Austrian museum
2013-02-19 18:20
Vienna - These museum goers didn't just leave their coats
at the coat check. They handed over their shirts, trousers and underwear.
Everything, in fact, except their shoes and socks.
After all, the stone floor can get chilly when you're
touring an art exhibit in the nude, which was what more than 60 art lovers did
in a special after-hours showing at Vienna's prestigious Leopold museum.
For many, the tour of "Nude Men from 1800 to
Today" - an exhibit of 300 paintings, photographs, drawings and sculptures
focused on the bare male - was a goose-bump-raising instance of life imitating
art.
"I can't say I'm sweating," said office worker
Herbert Korvas as he stood waiting in the atrium with other young men, wearing
only socks, sneakers and a smile. Despite the cold, he said he was drawn to the
idea of naked museum viewing "because it was something different”.
But after a while it really wasn't. With no other viewers
around, nude quickly became the new normal as the visitors quickly gathered
around a - dressed - exhibition guide and moved slowly from one art work to the
next, listening intently to their history.
And they weren't the first visitors to get naked either,
despite the hoopla around the event that drew dozens of reporters and camera
teams from Austria and elsewhere.
A man had already stripped at the exhibition of pictures
and sculptures in November, calmly sauntering through the exhibition and
dressing again only after a security guard asked him to do so. That act made
news - and sparked demand for Monday's all-nude showing, said museum spokesperson
Klaus Pokorny.
"We got requests from all over the world from people
who were inspired by the exhibition... who asked us, 'Can we visit the
exhibition naked?'" he said.
On Monday, interest was definitely skewed along gender
lines. Irina Wolf smiled as she looked around at the mostly male crowd lining
up for tickets.
"I'm at a big advantage here," she said.
"Only men around."
While Wolf said she is not someone who regularly strips
in public places, the 40-something computer engineer and occasional theatre
critic, said "I want to see how I relate to such a group."
For others, Monday's event fulfilled a long-cherished
wish - even though they had a hard time explaining why.
Florian Kahlenberg from Munich said he found it
"interesting to stroll through a museum naked," adding. "I've
always wanted to do that."
Successful
Few visitors, naked or dressed, have complained about the
show, despite some explicit material showing sexual acts. Described as among
the most successful ever staged by the Leopold, it has drawn well over 100 000
people.
That fits with Vienna's relaxed attitude.
Its turn-of-the-century decadence allowed Egon Schiele
and Gustav Klimt to flourish, and the Leopold itself has a world-class
collection of those and other artists known for their explicit depiction of the
flesh.
But the Austrian capital's acceptance of nudity goes
beyond museum exhibits. Thousands of men, women and children skinny dip daily
in the Danube along stretches reserved for them during the summer, while racy
lingerie ads dot huge billboards across the city all year round and a
mass-circulation daily regularly prints photos of half-naked women.
Still, there are limits to Viennese tolerance.
The Leopold was forced into cover-up mode last year after
complaints over promotional posters plastered city-wide that showed three young
and athletic men of different races wearing nothing but blue, white and red
socks and soccer boots.
Swaths of red tape were subsequently placed over their
sensitive parts.
- SAPA
