Nude art lovers tour nude exhibit at Vienna’s famed Leopold museum
They’re real exhibitionists! Brave museum goers left all their clothes at the coat check
to attend a special after-hours showing of 'Nude Men from 1800 to Today.'
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Tuesday, February 19, 2013, 11:19 AM
Museum goers shed everything but their shoes and socks to tour "Nude Men from 1800 to Today" during
a special opening at the Leopold Museum in Vienna on Monday.
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 spokesman 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.
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The exhibit looks at how artists have dealt with the theme of male nudity over the centuries.
The show, which opened on Oct. 19, 2012, has been one of the museum's most popular, drawing over
100,000 visitors.
Some 60 art lovers took part in the goose-bump-raising instance of life imitating art.
