Austrians get their kit off for art

Nearly 2,000 volunteers have got their kit off for a photo shoot at an Austrian soccer stadium.

It's the latest work by photographer Spencer Tunick, who has made a name for himself with his works featuring hundreds of naked people in unusual places.

The shoot took place at Happel Stadium, one of the venues of the European Soccer Championships that begin next month.

The 1,840 bare-backed volunteers were told by Tunick not to move, as well as given clear instructions of no sunglasses, no underwear - and no smiling.

Much of the hours-long photo shoot had little to do with football - but least one of the photos had volunteers holding a ball, men first and then the women.

Tunick said: "In many places in the US, if I entered the stadium with naked people, I would be arrested, so it's nice to come to Europe and do my work, and sort of get permission to do it, and so I'm very lucky."

He continued: "I think the big difference here is working with a sloping field, which is like a mountain.

"I don't have many opportunities to work with mountains so this is a sort of man-made mountain and to work with a structure like that is architecture.

"It enables me to take the work to some place it hasn't been."

The photographer described the shoot for his website as combining the spirit of sports, the grand sweeping waves of stadium architecture and the abstract relation of the human form to modern structures.

© Independent Television News Limited 2008. All rights reserved.

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