The Leopold Museum has a fantastic exhibition of works by Oskar Kokoschka, Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele and Richard Gerstl entitled The Naked Truth, should you be in Vienna. The catch? The Museum recommends you attend nude.
Vienna’s Leopold Museum has invited the public to come in the nude to view an exhibition of erotic works by Austrian masters like Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele, a spokeswoman says.
“At this time of the year, people prefer the beach to museums because there they get to take their clothes off. So we thought they find this an attractive proposition,” Verena Dahlitz told AFP.
She says the more bashful could wear bathing suits.
The odd thing about this story is that when I read it, I thought of something most remarkable I saw in town the other weekend. We all, I think, have those anxiety dreams where you’ve gone to work or wherever having forgotten to – um, put clothes on. But I don’t think we expect them to come true. I was walking past a coffee shop on a bitterly cold day – very windy and the maximum was 17 – the coldest so far this winter in Brissie – and saw a 40 something woman standing in the cafe naked. Completely. She looked disorientated and security guards were speaking with her.
I thought then – her dream has come true.
Nakedness is so contextual. What’s normal and encouraged in an Austrian museum is not just forbidden or transgressive but amazingly surreal in a Brisbane cafe.
Would you get nude for Klimt?
Where is nakedness normal or transgressive or just, well, bizarre?
How do you respond when people are inappropriately naked?
How to respond when inappropriate nakedness is presented? Be alert, but not alarmed. Be aware that clothing came first as a protection against the elements. Later as a fashion statement. If people chose to disrobe, should we really be offended that they have reduced themselves to their natural state?
I assume that in the same spirit, the pictures will be exhibited without frames?
Public nudity would not be such a big deal if not for the sexual connotations. For men unfortunately, these are the hardest to shake given that going sans clothing means going in fear that … er .. you might get a rise out of something.
Like for instance Ms Verena Dahlitz herself
http://www.pressefach.info/karriere.htm
I can imagine nothing less erotic than mooching around in the Leopold Museum surrounded by your average nuded-up, amply-proportioned, middle-aged Viennese gallery-goer, nurtured by a lifetime of sachertorte and wiener schnitzel. Presumably, they would keep their street shoes and socks on which would add at least make it semi-comical….
In the late 90s, my friend I shared a great flat at Highgate Hill – brilliant views of the Kangaroo Point cliffs on one side and out to Mt Cootha on the other.
And some other views of nature.
The thing was we had to walk up a flight of stairs to get to our apartment straight by the kitchen windows of one of the downstairs units.
Where lived – Nude Girl.
So dubbed because she never wore clothes at home. Or drew the blinds. She wasn’t unattractive, and it was hard not to steal a glance. Particularly when she and her boyfriend were bonking on the sink.
Our main concern was her privacy, you see.
Nudity at bus stops might help you out a bit Mark.
I worked at an office in Sydney that had Mark’s problem in the apartments opposite. I don’t really think it was a *problem*, except for the lost productivity.
The form of inappropriate semi-nudity that really bothers me is the backpacker’s wont to sun bake in parks. I know this is common in England, but it’s my reading of Australian convention that such forms of nudity are inappropriate except at the *beach*.
Rex, did you work for my company, perchance? We had ‘naked guitar playing man’ who used to sit on his balcony sans attire and strum away. At the guitar, that is.
I used to work opposite Hyde Park, where from time to time “topless chess spectator woman” would make an unwelcome appearance.
But yes, I would nude up for Klimt.
“Nudity at bus stops might help you out a bit Mark. ”
Despensing advice like this, does that make you the bed-flute?
I don’t think I’d like being caught in front of L’Origine Du Monde.
Good point wwb. An exhibition of Secessionist paintings is no place to exhibit your own work in the vein of Pollock.
Back in the 1960s I knew a few couples with kids in Adelaide who went nude inside the house. It wasn’t thought of as being all that unusual. I don’t think it happened to the same extent in Brissie, possibly because Brisbane houses tend to be more open to the outside.
Returning to Brisbane in 1968 I remember seeing a topless young woman in the local supermarket in Indooroopilly and in ’69 seeing a young woman dancing topless on a counter in a supermarket in Townsville on Saturday morning. It was about that time that a lot of nude beaches etc were established. In the 60s you had the feeling that just about anything could happen and I wondered whether a trend would be established.
Then there was the famous nude scene in the musical “Hair” in the early 70s.
But we seemed to prefer to keep our clobber on.
Fancy bracketing Kokoschka and Schiele in the same exhibition. OK was a sublime artist. Egon Schiele was a drooling voyeur. Just saying…
There’s a vague story in the back of my head about a husband desperately searching up and down along a nude beach. Some women were sunbaking with a newspaper over their head and he wasn’t sure which one was his wife.
Another true story was a holiday in Sydney in the early 70s with a break in the Blue Mountains. We saw a sign to a waterfall a few kms along a walking track off the main drag. After a while we heard a flute playing. Coming around the corner we stumbled on Pan serenading his naked nymph under the waterfall. There was embarrassment all around, but a real scatter on their part as the flute suddenly died.
As the commie plot of middle aged spread has hijacked the once svelte frame of this Bundy, I am of a belief that nudity should be condemned utterly.
People, the results of these flights of fancy are not always pretty.
And remember – Never cook bacon when you’re naked!
You have been warned.
There’s a photo gallery of gallery patrons here. Geoff’s warning should be taken into account before viewing.
Frankly, I’m the sort of person who won’t wear a bikini, let alone appear naked in public. (Yes, I have demure swimmers.) So I don’t understand the appeal of being a ‘naturalist’.
Especially on a cold winter’s day.
Also, if I am looking at paintings I don’t want to be distracted by anyone’s dangly bits.
Although, Kate, it’s summer in Vienna and apparently it was 36 degrees, which I dare say Europeans aren’t used to.
I went for a skinnydip at Noosa!
I did a nude photo shoot when I was 23. Partly it was because I wanted to improve my body image.
The other reason was I needed the dosh!
Did they wear berets, being art school types?
Time for a hot bath. While we’re on the topic of nudity.
It’s not just art school types, Kim.
Liam, do you ever take your beret off? Do you feel naked without it?
I think one of the guys is wearing Birkenstocks. Though, mercifully, without socks.
Advice for anyone considering the wearing of a beret:
Remove from head, wash hair. Repeat daily.
Remove from head, air in the breeze or sun. Repeat weekly-fortnightly.
Remove from head, dryclean. Repeat as necessary (especially when your mates spill beer in it).
…
Since you ask, I don’t like going out these days without a hat. But I alternate with other caps, especially on sunny days.
Air the beret in the breeze or sun, rather. Your head you can treat as you please.
Online beret maintenance. There’s three words I wouldnt have predicted making sense together.
And they say the web aint educational for kids. Bah!
Night all! Rise like lions after slumber, etc.
Ah, don’t start on cats, Naomi. Unlike berets and cardigans, that’s a topic bound to end up in terrible and frightening cuteness.
Here’s a Delia Smith tip for airing your beret. Take one (1) steel coathanger, lie it flat on a table and bend both corners upwards to make a ‘u’ shape, as smooth and as rounded as you can. Now you can put the beret on your clothesline in the breeze.
Only goths, soldiers on manoevres, and P.P. McGuinness can get away with filthy berets.
Ooooohhhh, is that your kitty, Liam! Such a sweetie!
(Well, you predicted!).
Naomi, salt for wine stains.
Also, Liam I do think airing one’s head occasionally in the sun is beneficial.
She’s not mine, I am unfortunately catless.
It’s my partner’s sister’s cat. But they are my fingers.
Well, cute fingers too, Liam. But the cat is the cutestness!
On the topic of the post, nudity is highly contextual. I agree.
At the sandstone university I attend and have taught at, the students at the residential colleges are known often, at night, to make the campus their nude running ground.
If you’re about after dark, and you see a pack of a dozen or so nude men or women leisurely doing ‘bollock runs’, don’t be afraid. It’s just homo-social bonding.
Quite a different context to the man I once saw dash past me in Paddington, at 11am on a workday, nude except for sneakers and handcuffs, sprinting to get away from a police car. A nude crime wave, I thought?
We used to have a student union tradition of a naked run around the Great Court by the Councillors after the always riotous changeover dinner (attended by incoming and outgoing Councils and University bigwigs). Before my time, a certain Vice-Chancellor apparently also participated. Since these dinners were held in December, during my time, the tradition was altered to climbing over the fence and having a mass skinnydip in the Uni pool – which also featured after my 21st birthday party (held on campus). So at Qld Uni, it wasn’t just reactionary Collegians but progressive lefties who could be found naked on campus after midnight.
I emphasise the difference, though, that such Dionysian revelries were definitely co-ed.
Does one naked person constitute a wave?
On one weekend day, I saw a naked woman standing at the corner of the Queen Victoria Building in Sydney, naked except for some high heels. No-one particularly paid attention, apart from the “oh, there’s a naked person standing on the corner” reaction. I think she was advertising a sale in a shop.
Ah, the UQU pool escapades. A particularly absurb moment: I recall debating World-Systems theory with a certain Zoe while we were both starkers and pished.
The same certain Zoe gave me a red rose for my birthday and was then kind enough to partner with me on the girls sitting on standing boys and attacking other girls on standing boys skinnydipping pool game!
Do you know where she ended up, Lefty E? Last I heard she was doing a PhD in politics at Melbourne Uni – that must have been about 6 years ago or so.
Where no doubt she researched Popper.
And people wonder why the Tories want to shut down the student unions.
I can imagine one would remember such a thing! Without getting too self-ref & clubby – she lives down here now.
They’re afraid to nude it up!
Well, if you see her, say hello for me, Lefty E!
Yes Mark – organiser for the AWU.
Now there’s a career choice I wouldn’t have predicted! At least that means she’s not hanging out with ISO boys anymore, I would think!
Shall do!
Thats some time ago, Herr Bahnisch. And, as you note, not exactly compatible activities!
Indeed! I have a lot of time for a certain Zoe so was hoping she’d see the errors of sectarianism!
last coment was swallowed in the ether – but SBS news calls….
Btw – how CRAP is the new intro & music?
a friend of mine designed that! i shall inform him lefty e.
What good fortune, Rex! Hmmm.
Ah, the risks of airing one’s views…