Nudes wear masks in Spencer Tunick installation

How's this for a cheeky piece of art?

Volunteers have stripped naked, apart from their face masks, in Spencer Tunick's socially distanced art installation at Alexandra Palace.

More than 200 people took part in the gathering at the famous London venue in the early hours of Saturday morning.

US photographer Tunick said creating the eye-catching piece was "liberating and life-affirming"; and it was all about "breaking down barriers".

"The reality of masses of people close together - shoulder to shoulder, skin touching skin - may be something of the past for now, but still the desire is there for that natural connectivity, perhaps more so now than ever," said Tunick.

Participants stood at least one metre apart and had temperature checks on arrival

Entitled Everyone Together, the piece - supported by Sky Arts - is thought to be the UK's first major collective piece of artwork during the coronavirus pandemic.

"To celebrate Sky Arts becoming free for everyone, we wanted to create a landmark cultural moment that invited participation in a Covid-safe fashion, and demonstrated to the wider public that art is at its most essential when it is for - and about - everybody," added Sky Arts director Phil Edgar Jones.

"While the pandemic has presented challenges to the cultural sector, we've also seen a great deal of innovation in the arts, and thousands of people have created their own artworks or reconnected with their artistic abilities."

He added: "The sense that the arts is for a self-selecting group of people is disappearing, and that can only be a good thing."

Tunick is famous for his images of mass nudes, and has previously produced work in Folkestone, Kent, for the George's House Gallery.