A Spectacle

      3 November, 1994. It was an eventful day. I had previously been approached by Nancy Wright, model coordinator at Fleisher Art Memorial, about being a participant in a performance event devised by Gabriel Martinez, photography professor at both Fleisher and University of the Arts. In the afternoon I had my "synchronicity" experience with Al Gury, related in the second blog entry. 
  
   The Spectacle, as Gabe called it, was set up in the Black Box Theater, in a second floor room at University of the Arts on South Broad St. As spectators entered, they were greeted by a man in a tuxedo, flanked by a sign that read "No photography allowed." The sign was Gabe's little joke (or one of them).

      As the spectators entered the performance space, they saw Gabriel, standing nude on a revolving platform, as his partner took Polaroid photos of him at ever-changing angles. Gabe's platform was just outside a rectangular space marked out by posts and ropes you might see in an outdoor wedding space. Inside the rectangular space there were 28 of us, 14 male, 14 female, all nude. And, to make Gabe's little joke, each of us had a camera, and we were busily taking photos of the spectators. As the spectators moved around the rectangle, they saw a long table where three young women (clothed) were making buttons out of the polaroids of Gabe, and handing them out as souviners. This was the first of two performance events of Gabriel's in which I was a participant. I'll write about the other, "100% Body Surface," at a later time.

 

Here is the group photo from that memorable evening.  I am standing, a bit to the right of front & center, with beard and glasses.