Tunick heads to South Beach for photo shoot Over 600 people in South Beach bared all this week for Spencer Tunick's latest project at the Sagamore Hotel. Tunick, a photographer and artist of the human form, will display the final works at the annual Art Basel festivities in Miami Beach in December. Tunick was reportedly pleased with the diversity of the volunteers' bodies, preferring not to focus on only the toned and tanned that habituate South Beach. This weeks's sessions are just the latest in Tunick's long history of photographing scores of nude human bodies in various locations around the world in such cities as Barcelona, New York and Mexico City. The Sagamore Hotel has an ongoing collaboration with recognized artists to create original works in the hotel's interior, garden and beach. The photo at right is by John Van Beekum of the Miami Herald staff. Read more . . . 
Free (naked) lunch Who says there's no such thing as a free lunch? The Black Frog Restaurant in Maine developed a sandwich called the Skinny Dip, sliced prime rib on a baguette, which is offered free of charge to anyone who will dive naked from the restaurant's dock into a lake. Since the free sandwich offer began three years ago, the restaurant has had plenty of takers, often two or three weekly. However, the Skinny Dip promotion may soon become a thing of the past if town officials have their way. A patron suggested to selectmen that the practice be banned. Owner Leigh Turner said she would comply if the ban is passed, even though the skinny-dip is done with no frontal nudity exposed to customers. Read more . . . Famous artwork stays put A nude painting displayed in the window of a new Orlando, Florida, restaurant is creating controversy about artistic expression. The painting in question is La Maja by renowned Spanish artist Francisco Goya. The Spanish master painted two versions of the painting in the late 1700s--one in which the subject is clothed and the other with a nude subject. Some passersby in the busy downtown area where the paintings are displayed have complained. The city of Orlando said there is a fine line about what type of art can be displayed and what cannot. After viewing the paintings, code enforcers decided the nude painting could stay put since it is a famous piece of artwork by a famous painter. Read more . . . "Bare skin" rug stolen A Portland, Oregon, artist's life-size nude self-portrait woven into a rug was taken from an art exhibit at Linfield College, reports The Oregonian. For over two years, Tamera Bremer worked on the 85-by-17-inch piece made of monk's cloth, hand-painted alpaca and latex. Bremer said that she logged thousands of hours finishing the rug that was meant to be part of a series after she realized that "a bearskin rug could really be a bare-skin rug," and regards the loss of the rug as "a loss of self." Read more . . . 
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