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​Artist Spencer Tunick discusses his art installation near the Quicken Loans Arena​ in July.

BY KATE STOREY

MAY 12, 2016

At the Republican National Convention in Cleveland this July, 100 naked women will stand facing the Quicken Loans Arena holding large, round mirrors. They'll be part of artist Spencer Tunick's latest large-scale art installation: "Everything She Says Means Everything."

The New York-based artist has been planning this project since 2013—back when Donald Trump was little more than a hyper-rich businessman and reality-TV personality.

"I could never have imagined there would be such a heightened attention to the male-versus-female dynamic of this Cleveland juggernaut of a convention," Tunick tells Esquire. "But I feel like doing this will sort of calms the senses. It brings it back to the body and to purity."

So what's the deal with the mirrors, Spencer? "The mirrors communicate that we are a reflection of ourselves and the world that surrounds us."

Tunick has been creating large-scale nude installations since 1994 when he organized a project at the United Nations. He's staged them around the world and, for his largest undertaking, gathered 18,000 people in Mexico City. Lady Gaga wrote her NYU undergraduate thesis about Tunick's influential—and at times controversial—work, arguing: "Tunick challenges traditional ideas of intimacy, and asks us to free the body of sexuality and view it aesthetically for the purpose of his art." 

Tunick usually invites both sexes to participate. But this time, it'll just be women. It's no surprise that the Republican party is facing a massive woman problem right now: Seven out of 10 women say they have a negative impression of Trump, the party's presumptive nominee, according to a recent poll. And his latest campaign tactic has been accusing Hillary Clinton of playing the woman card.

"I have two daughters—9 and 11—and I want them to grow up in a progressive world with equal rights and equal pay and better treatment for women, and I feel like the 100 women lighting up the sky of Cleveland will send this ray of knowledge onto the cityscape," Tunick says. "I think it will enlighten not only the delegates but set the vibe of the weekend, set a tone."

Tunick announced the project and put out a call for unpaid volunteers this week. To pull it off, he'll work with a location manager, volunteers from local art schools, and his wife. Early in the morning on July 17, the day before the convention, the women will meet across from the arena on private property to get into formation, rain or shine. He estimates the volunteers will be nude for about 15 minutes. Each participant will receive a limited edition print of the project.

While Trump events have drawn violence from his supporters and protesters, Tunick hopes his project will be a unifying one.

 "We really are reaching out to people of all parties. This is a work Republican women can participate in. It's not so much a protest as it is a representative artwork," says Tunick, who went to the New York Military Academy, which Trump attended as well. "Who knows what will happen."

When asked if he's concerned about police intervention, Tunick says: "I hope police participate in the project, too. I've had a lot of cops participate in the past."

The artist is no stranger to legal pushback or controversy.

In 2002, after facing hundreds of protestors in Santiago, Chile, 5,000 nude volunteers turned out for a massive instillation. "The people used my work as a catalyst to send a message to the government that they're free and the government doesn't own their bodies," he says. That year, Tunick was named the country's Man of the Year by a local newspaper.

He's been arrested five times while attempting to work outdoors in New York, and Cleveland won't be his first brush with Republican politicians. While facing threat of arrest by New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, the owners of Grand Central Station closed it down for him to host 400 women for an installation. The case against Tunick went to the Supreme Court. In 2000, the courtruled in favor of the artist.

"I ran into [Ruth Bader] Ginsburg at a museum after that and I thanked her," Tunick says. "She said, 'Just don't do it on the steps of the Supreme Court.'"