Tunick's Mexico City shoot attracts 18,000 nude volunteers

Approximately 18,000 people stripped down for Spencer Tunick in Mexico City's largest square on Sunday morning, setting a new record for the U.S. photographer famed for his mass nude photo shoots.

Male and female volunteers of different ages stood and saluted, lay down on the ground, crouched in the fetal position and otherwise posed for Tunick's lens in Mexico City's Zocalo Square, the city's massive central plaza also known as Plaza de la Constitucion.

"What a moment for the Mexican art scene," Tunick said at a news conference.

"I think all eyes are looking south from the United States to Mexico City to see how a country can be free and treat the naked body as art. Not as pornography or as a crime, but with happiness and caring."

In the past, the U.S. photographer faced arrest even at home in New York for his photo shoots, in which he snaps images of nude volunteers in public. However, nudity is more widely accepted in Mexico, where protesters sometimes attend demonstrations nude or clad only in underwear.

The turnout for Sunday's photo shoot far surpassed Tunick's previous record, when about 7,000 people showed up to pose for him in Barcelona.

This latest photo shoot was about five years in the making, with Mexican officials first turning down the photographer's request to set the shoot at the Teotihuacan pyramids outside the capital.

Tunick has staged his photo shoots around the world, including in London, Vienna, Sao Paulo, Caracas, Buffalo and Montreal.