Museum guests to strip naked before entering nude exhibition

Museum guests to strip naked before entering nude exhibition

A French museum is set to host an exhibition where the guests will have to strip naked to enter and chat about the experience.

The event at the macLYON, the museum of contemporary art in Lyon, is part of a series of two acts focusing on the presence of the body in the works of the macLYON Collection.

Naked visitors will be able to enjoy the 90-minute session on Thursday that aims to move away from the notion of 17th-century French philosopher René Descartes: ‘I think, therefore I am.’

It instead aims to put forward that we are above all our bodies, and that there is no ‘pure’ thought detached from an organism that perceives and experiences.

‘Our idea is to question the issue of the body in a given space, to see how bodies interact with other bodies,’ a spokesman for the macLYON told The Times.

Frédéric Martin, the branch chairman, added: ‘It’s interesting to experience an exhibition totally naked. That makes us focus on our own perception of ourselves, with a social artifice.’

He said naturists tend to stay out of view so as ‘not to cause panic in politer society. But now we are coming out from behind our ramparts to say that the philosophy is doing very well’.

The first act of the Incarnations series runs until July 9. The works on display, dating from the 1960s, present the body in its physical truth, as a means of experimenting with oneself and the world.

The second act of the exhibition begins in September 2023 in the same space, addressing the confrontation between the body and the environment, while exploring the same themes.