EURO 2008 soccer field to host next Spencer Tunick nude shoot

Spencer Tunick, known worldwide for photographing and filming nude volunteers in urban and natural settings, is hoping to mix art with sport for his upcoming installation.

The New York artist is teaming up with a Vienna art centre to stage one of his elaborately posed nude installations in the stadium where the final of EURO 2008 — the European soccer championship — will be played this June. Austria and Switzerland are co-hosting the event, which runs June 7-29.

Tunick's photo shoot is set for May 11, rain or shine, and organizers hope to enlist 2,008 naked soccer fans to pose for the artist's lens on the field inside Vienna's Ernst Happel Stadium.

The installation is a perfect event to hold in the run-up to the tournament because the U.S. artist's work "spreads a strong sense of community spirit" in the same way that soccer does, according to Katharina Murschetz of Vienna's Kunsthalle Wien art exhibition centre.

The goal is "to capture and combine the spirit of sports, the grand sweeping waves of stadium architecture and the abstract relation of the human form to modern structures," according to a statement calling for volunteers.

Organizers are encouraging soccer fans from neighbouring countries and cities to sign up, with the first 2,008 registered participants set to receive a free train ticket to Vienna for the photo shoot.

As with Tunick's previous works, all participants will receive one of the limited-edition photos he will capture at the stadium.

Tunick has staged his installations — which have ranged from just a few subjects to approximately 18,000 people — in cities around the globe, including Montreal, Barcelona, his native New York and Mexico City.

Last year, Mexico City hosted the artist's largest installation ever when about 18,000 people of all ages, shapes and sizes turned up and doffed their clothes to pose for photos at Zocalo Square, the city's massive central plaza also known as Plaza de la Constitucion.