Spencer Tunick Cleveland shoot

Volunteers--2754 people--pose nude on the E. 9th St. pier on Saturday, June 26, 2004 as part of a photo shoot organized by New York art photographer Spencer Tunick. Tunick plans to return to Cleveland for another project this July during the Republican National Convention.

(Chris Stephens, The Plain Dealer Publishing Co.)

Tunick hollers for help from an assistant as he prepares to photograph nudes in Voinovich Park on June 26, 2004.

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- An artist known for his large-scale nude photo shoots is planning to make a splashy return to Cleveland at this summer's Republican National Convention.

Spencer Tunick, of New York, is looking for 100 women to pose nude while holding mirrors in Cleveland at sunrise on July 17, the week of the GOP convention. Those who are interested can sign up by submitting a photo at his website, www.spencertunickcleveland.com. (An unsurprising heads-up: the website includes graphic, but artistic, images of nude people.)

Tunick told Cleveland Scene, which broke the news of the project, that he plans to hold the photo shoot on private property, in part so he doesn't have to deal with police and the "hassle of permits." A handful of groups already have applied for permits to demonstrate during the GOP convention, and more are expected.

Tunick's last Cleveland project was in 2004, when he photographed 2,754 people on East 9th Street near the lakefront on a chilly, 57-degree Saturday. He also took smaller, gender-segregated shots at the William G. Mather Museum and the lawn in Voinovich Park.

The photo of the full crowd was unveiled later that summer at the Museum of Contemporary Art in University Circle.

Why 100 nude women? Why mirrors? Tunick explains on his website:

Tunick told Scene his project is meant to "energize the city, to heat it up, and this ray of light bringing knowledge and helping maybe to tone down the rhetoric of hate and prejudice against women preceding the convention."

Tunick told Scene he was inspired to shoot during the GOP convention after seeing a 2007 film about the Chicago 8, a group of activists who were federally charged following the explosive 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. According to Scene: