Browsing through the 11 Spring Pictures, we stumbled across a shot of a naked dude posing in front of the building. It was so disturbing that we felt compelled to investigate further, and a few clicks later, we found ourselves at NakedGuyNYC, a Flickr stream of, well, a naked guy posing in various locations around New York City. Here's his artist's statement:
I'm in the process of creating a naked landscape..
From the space between the radically physical self-expressive, and the spiritually driven actions of the skyclad -- bound by concrete, come these naked self portraits.
I've been called an exhibitionist, but it's not only or specifically about that. In the same way Spencer Tunik's isn't (only, specifically) about nudes.. Neither would work in quite the same way without the nakedness, yet both attempt to transcend it.
In my work I am exploring the level of comfort people have with male nakedness and artistic nudity, while hinting at the way a camera makes the social context understandable and less threatening. In a world where images of the human body are almost exclusively sexual, and are used to strictly consumerist end, the non-sexual nude in public requires some rethinking and breaking out of the consumer mentality.
In mid-August 2006, I crossed another boundary.. I went from flowing locks to a hairless body... I cut my hair: the hair I'd been growing for 5 years. And I shaved my body too. In the weeks before the clipping date, I was trying to get every moment of naked phototaking in with the goal to repeat the shots right after the cutting as a contrast and juxtaposition.
Now that the cutting is done, I'm working backwards and forwards as I post to ~flickr~ I.e., as I get new pics in my new less-hair state, I am dedicated to moving to the older pics from my collection and posting a set from the past at the same time as the new set. I think the contrast is important, yet again, without fully understanding it.
Feel free to make me a contact.. or request thereof... I make friends of anyone who has at least a few pics.. anyone without a single pic remains a vanilla contact.
Lastly, if you're in nyc and are willing to step up behind the camera and take some shots, then feel free to contact me. I'm open, fun and looking for adventures to document.
Naturally yours,
Brklyn Paul
aka Naked Guy in NYC
NakedGuyNYC@aol.comI'm Male, 45 and Open.
New York City, Brklyn, USA
We've picked some favorites from his body of work-- and blurred out the naughty bits. But if you're 18 years of age or older, and a fan of middle-aged male nudes, check out the rest of Naked Guy's shots here.
