French Museum Invites Visitors to Get Naked for New Nudist Exhibition

A museum in the southern French city of Marseille is celebrating its tenth anniversary by giving visitors the chance to see its current show in the nude.

“Naturist Paradises” at The Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilizations (Mucem) is dedicated to “living naked” and charts the history of nudism over the last century, particularly in France.

According to Outforia, a wilderness travel website, the country is the world’s most nudist-friendly, boasting 397 public nudist beaches and 212 naturist campsites. The US is apparently the second-most welcoming place to get naked in public.

In the spirit of the “Naturist Paradises,” punters can leave their clothes at home on certain Tuesdays while it runs until December 9. Nudist groups have organized the special viewings. More than 600 paintings, photos, films, magazines, sculptures, and objects are on show.

A curtain in the shape of a large sun guards the exhibition because, as Mucem curator Amélie Lavin explained, it was the sun that first attracted nudists to France. “The heart of naturism is to reconnect with nature, to rediscover your naked body,” she said. “I hope that the exhibition also allows us to question the equation that we systematically make between nudity and sexuality. The exhibition shows a lot of naked bodies but it is not at all about sexuality.”

Co-curator of “Naturist Paradises,” Bernard Andrieu, added, “In the 1920s, we were in enclosed spaces, either on islands or in very closed clubs, in castles open mainly to the bourgeoisie, who wanted to get away from Paris and pollution.”

The museum wants to make it clear that “nudism isn’t just a fade of the sixties,” and says that a new wave of nudity has arisen and goes “hand-in-hand with the search for healthy, vegetarian diets and the use of natural therapies, meditation, and yoga in the open air.”