It’s 7:35 AM this Sunday, and between 400 and 500 naked people, painted with the 11 colors of the Progress Pride flag, begin to parade in front of the Cathedral of the Canary Islands under the orders of photographer Spencer Tunick’s assistants. Tunick observes the scene, walkie-talkie in hand, from the terrace of the Casas Consistoriales in Las Palmas, across the square. For the next two long hours, the New York artist will direct the participants (“backs to me”, “step aside”, “lying on your side with your hand on your hip”…) to create Gran Spectrum: an intervention that has taken place in Santa Ana square and in front of the adjacent Casa de Colón, aiming to assert the rights of the LGBTQIA+ community within the framework of the Culture & Business Pride 2026 festival, organized by the Cabildo de Gran Canaria and the Government of the Canary Islands.
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“The community needs all possible support for the future,” the artist stated to the media at the end of the photo session. “Any place where naked bodies are accepted in harmony, without separating them, represents a great step forward for the future.” The action was carried out just hours after the attack that occurred this Saturday during the Pride march celebrations (Christopher Street Day, CSD) in central Berlin, in which one woman died and 29 people were injured after being hit by a speeding van.
This Sunday, Gran Canaria was the last stop in a career forged from almost abstract images featuring unclothed bodies. Tunick began somewhat more modestly in early nineties New York. There, he took advantage of the legislation—which permitted nude photography on the street as long as it had artistic purposes—and the early hours of the day to photograph individuals. Over time, he gathered contacts—waiters, video store employees—until he accumulated more than 70 phone numbers. With them, he organized his first mass session.
That first group gathering, in front of the UN headquarters, brought together 28 people. “The final image worked: I thought it wasn’t tacky or cheesy, but had a strong and serious quality,” he recalled this week in an interview with EL PAÍS. “At that moment I thought: wow, something is happening here.” The rest is well-known: an international career photographing large concentrations of naked bodies, with milestones such as the Barcelona call in 2003 (between 4,500 and 7,000 participants, according to the source) and his record in Mexico City in 2007, with between 18,000 and 20,000 people.
Not all of his projects came to fruition: Tenerife, South Korea—where the government denied him permission—and another in Taiwan—canceled when everything was already organized—are among the failures, which he attributes to the existence of governments he describes as “narrow-minded and restrictive.”
He has encountered no obstacles in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Here, the police cordoned off a large part of the historic center from dawn, both to allow Tunick to work freely and for participants to undress and prepare without the scrutiny of onlookers. Moreover, the action took place on the same stage where Pope Leo XIV held a meeting on June 11 with bishops, priests, deacons, religious, seminarians, and pastoral agents from across the Diocese of the Canary Islands. “There was the possibility of working in both directions [facing the cathedral or with our backs to it, with the City Hall in the background], but there was already a stage set up, so I could only work in one direction. They informed me about a week before I came,” he says with a slight shrug. “Anyway, I think what happened is good for the future.”
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But the present also seems to raise no objections to his work on the island. This Sunday morning, in front of the cathedral, the Bishop of the Canary Islands, José Mazuelos, emphasized in statements to EL PAÍS that he unreservedly approves of the action held in front of his home—the Episcopal Palace where he resides is located in the same Santa Ana square. “I have no problem,” he declares. “When we go to the beach, we see naked bodies, don’t we?”
The prelate, however, did complain about the street closures, which prevented access for the dean and a dozen parishioners who had arrived early to celebrate the ten o’clock mass, precisely on Santa Ana’s day. “Today is a special day for us. When people go to concerts, don’t they arrive early to enjoy it? Well, we want to be early to enjoy God,” explain Cita and Evaristo, two retirees leaning on the fences that block their way.
Ten minutes later, the joy of Cita, Evaristo, and several dozen parishioners will form a curious image, at the very least, as they mix at the entrance with the bustle of the multicolored participants—some still naked—after the photo session. One of these happy people was Patricia Pardo de Donlebún, with an ear-to-ear smile that stood out even more with the brown paint. “It was a party at five in the morning, I’m so glad I got up,” she recounts amidst a hubbub of colorful bodies. “I arrived and didn’t know anyone, and in the end, you end up putting cream on everyone.” And most importantly, in her opinion: “There was, above all, love for the body. It didn’t matter if you were fat, short, thin, tall, breasts here or there… In the end, we all have the same thing.”
“I am very happy for all the people who came and participated,” Tunick concludes at the end of the installation, “that they joined and could create with me beautiful sculptural works that covered a wide range of themes: queer identity, as well as LGBTQIA+ values, that is, inclusion in art, in equality, and the mere freedom to be in public and among your neighbors.”
