ABOVE: detail from photographer Spencer Tunick’s Montreal 3 installation of hundreds of naked volunteers outside the Musee d’art contemporain de Montreal. Tunick completed his first English shoot on Sunday morning.

Spencer Tunick, the photographer who has built his considerable reputation on photographs of hundreds or thousands of naked subjects posing all together in public urban settings, executed his first such project in England over the weekend. 1,700 people (or 1.7 MegaNudes—1.7 Mn on the Tunick Scale) showed up at 4 AM Sunday morning to take their place as either hill or dale in the Newcastle/Gateshead fleshscape.

Even the most serious arts reporters seem to dissolve like jelly when reporting on Tunick’s work, getting caught up in the breathless giggling that suffuses all the artist’s coverage. And the stories are all about the process of Tunick’s work, obsessed with the logistical and sociological chutzpah it implies, instead of the photos themselves, which are texturally impressive but kind of dull, like a close up of deep shag carpet. And the theme of juxtaposing public and private space—it’s the other crusty old theme that pops up alongside “time” and “memory” in the most listless and paint-by-numbers artists’ statements. Hats (and everything else, apparently) off to Spencer Tunick for his success, but please, let’s giggle quietly.

LINK: BBC News > Hundreds of nudes cross the Tyne