Spencer Tunick is perhaps best known for his coordination of massively abstracted nude photographic displays and their commentary on privacy and place.

Find his on-line portfolio; www.spencertunick.com and it will say in pictures far more than I could in some futile attempt here.... yet, here I go.

Dozens, if not hundreds or thousands of volunteers put into specific place and time and the juxtaposition of permanence versus temporary illustrations of aesthetic beauty makes for a unique and singular aesthetic... I do see the value of the endeavor. I do see the image.... the whole.

There's something unique to seeing the human body as part of a sea of flesh in the abstract.... bodies become walls and roads... seamlessly blending into the landscape. They lose their meaning and make a new one in one motion... in no motion they convey movement and the static nature of time and place.

They are not at all sexual, these images. They seek to find the balance between the natural and urban landscapes. The human form in its most natural state.

Still, when you watch these naked images wash over you... there is a muddling you tend to make with the editorial fashion magazine approach to air brushed beauty.

We graduate from singular stills of individuals or pairs.... to eventual trying to incorporating group photography and watch the image and the person become more indistinct. The group images that came to be Tunick's signature are where they become transcendent for me.

The mass nudes were differently received than the individuals.... not as often greeted as salacious or gratuitous once there were more than three or four bodies.

Floods of people overwhelming the city streets and spilling out over river banks.... I can only refer you to the on-line portfolio again... or, the artscape flickr feed(assuming they're cleared).

I do though almost relish trying to convey the impressions these hordes of naked bodies have made on me.

Balls.... lots and lots of balls.... elbows and ears and bums upturned.

It's a strange phenomenon to be bored by too much beauty. I've been photographed nude a few times in my life.... solitary and sequestered away from prying eyes. Still, it's these shots that I guard closely.... that I recall clearly... and, beyond all else, see as a shared intimate experience.

We watch a video of an aborted attempt at a mass nude in Times Square in New York... and his nude recreation of New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's appeal to the courts to ban mass public nude photography in which a naked mayoral doppleganger made a spirited dangling diatribe wins the day.

Every video seems to be a chronicle of another arrest... another effort to play beat the clock and avoid the cops while his subjects speedily disrobe.

The way that light makes subtle skin differences seem indistinct.... and, how in these contexts nudity is boring and banal... jarring and alien, all at once.

What more can you say about unseen nakedness? You could say that its tits are meant to titillate.... but, somehow they leave me wanting.

I do understood that's not their purpose.... I understand their meant to provoke a reaction... but, is it fair if that reaction is nonplus?

If that's an earnest reaction, than I suppose it must be.

Balls.

Vagina.

Penis... penis.... penis.... penis.... balls.... penis..... vagina... vagina.

Got 'em.... got 'em...... got 'em..... need 'em..... want 'em.... got 'em.

Beautiful breasts and boredom brought on by an overloaded sea of scrotums is a strange combination.

So, what then does Tunick's legacy look like....?

Well, it looks like 20,000 odd, indistinct naked bodies blanketing a city square and down the streets... will you see the bodies or their collective shape filling the square?

For Tunick.... the spirit of freedom is the ability to make public art in public spaces and to be free of our clothes and inhibitions.

It's the kind of image I'd visit.... but, I wouldn't want to live with.

I wouldn't want to be bored by beauty.