Artist Spencer Tunick Exhibitions
Spencer Tunick's body of work may come to help define or at least clarify the social, political and legal issues surrounding art in the public sphere. Since 1992, Tunick has been arrested 5 times while attempting to work outdoors in New York City. Soon after his Times Square arrest, as with the previous 4 arrests, all charges were dropped. Determined to create his work on the streets of New York, the artist filed a Federal Civil Rights Law Suit against the city to protect himself and his participants from future arrests. In May 2000, the Second US district court sided with Tunick, recognizing that his work was protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution. On June 3 of the same year, in response to the city's final appeal made to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the court at large, the US Supreme Court also ruled in favor of Tunick by remanding the case back down, allowing the lower court decision to stand and the artist to freely organize his work on New York City streets.
His temporary site-specific installations have been commissioned by the XXV Biennial de Sao Paulo, Brazil (2002); Institut Cultura, Barcelona (2003); The Saatchi Gallery (2003); MOCA Cleveland (2004); Vienna Kunsthalle (2008) and MAMBO Museum of Modern Art, Bogota (2016), among others.