Scores of naked or scantily clad people wandered the museum, lured
by an offer of free entry to "The Naked Truth," a new exhibition of
early 1900s erotic art, if they showed up wearing just a swimsuit -- or
nothing at all.
With a midsummer heat wave sweeping much of
Europe, pushing temperatures into the mid-90s Fahrenheit (mid-30s
Celsius) in Vienna, the normally staid museum decided that making the
most of its cool, climate-controlled space would be just the ticket to
spur interest in the show.
Peter Weinhaeupl, the Leopold's
commercial director, said the goal was twofold -- help people beat the
heat while creating a mini-scandal reminiscent of the way the artworks
by Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Oskar Kokoschka and others shocked the
public when they first were unveiled a century ago.
"We wanted to
give people a chance to cool off, and bring nakedness into the open,"
he said. "It's a bit of an experiment. Egon Schiele was a young and
wild person in his day. He'd want to be here."
Most of those who
showed up in little or no attire Friday opted for swimsuits, but a few
hardy souls dared to bare more. Among them was Bettina Huth of
Stuttgart, Germany, who roamed the exhibition wearing only sandals and
a black bikini bottom.
Although she used a program at one point
to shield herself from a phalanx of TV cameras, Huth, 52, said she
didn't understand what all the fuss was about.
"I go into the
steam bath every week, so I'm used to being naked," she said. "I think
there's a double morality, especially in America. We lived in
California for two years, and I found it strange that my children had
to cover themselves up at the beach when they were only 3 or 4 years
old. That's ridiculous."
For years, the Austrian capital has been
known for a small but lively nudist colony on the Donauinsel, an island
in the middle of the Danube River where people disrobe, often startling
the unsuspecting joggers, cyclists and rollerbladers who happen upon
them.
Overwhelmingly Roman Catholic Austria has always been
somewhat more conservative than many other European countries. The
Viennese were scandalized when native art nouveau masters like Klimt --
best known for his sensuous "The Kiss" and the subject of an upcoming
film starring John Malkovich -- began producing works that some critics
panned as "indecency," "artistic self-pollution" and borderline
pornography.
The 180 works on display at the Leopold through Aug.
22 include Klimt's "Nude Veritas," an 1899 painting of a naked young
woman with wildflowers in her hair, and Schiele's "Two Female Friends,"
a 1915 rendition of two nude women entangled in each other's arms.
Max
Hollein, director of Frankfurt's Schirn Kunsthalle art museum, likened
the public uproar at the time to "the visible outcry at the live
transmission from last year's Super Bowl when, for a few seconds, CBS
broadcast shots of the singer Janet Jackson's exposed nipple."
Mario
Vorhemes, a 20-year-old Vienna resident who strode into the Leopold on
Friday wearing nothing but a green and black Speedo, was nonchalant.
"What's
the big deal?" he asked. "We're born naked into this world. Why can't
we walk around in it without clothes from time to time?"
Elina Ranta, a fully clothed tourist from Finland who checked out the art -- and the audience -- left amused.
"I
thought, 'This is strange. How is this possible in a museum?"' Ranta
said. "We've been in many galleries and I've never seen people walking
around like this."
"In English, my name means 'beach,"' she added. "That's pretty funny under these circumstances, isn't it?"
Scores of naked or scantily clad people wandered the museum, lured
by an offer of free entry to "The Naked Truth," a new exhibition of
early 1900s erotic art, if they showed up wearing just a swimsuit -- or
nothing at all.
