MIAMI -- Hundreds of people will bare it all in South Beach on Oct. 8. Spencer Tunick, a photographer and artist of the human form, is looking for 600 to 800 people to be part of his upcoming art installation at South Beach's Sagamore Hotel that will be unveiled during Miami Beach's annual Art Basel festivities in December.

Tunick has previously photographed 18,000 naked people in Mexico City, and 7,000 people in Barcelona. The artist is looking for a range of types -- not just South Beach's famously trim models and six-pack gym bodies.

Already people are trying to take advantage of Tunick's call for nude people. There have been reports of ads on Craigslist for the installation, offering $500 and asking people to e-mail full nude pictures as a prerequisite, to a Yahoo e-mail address. Tunick said the ads are fake and suggest not responding to them, but only using the official registration site to sign up.

Kenny Schaefer, the general manager of the Sagamore Hotel, says the pool and garden area will be at the artist's disposal on Oct. 8, but anyone not participating won't be able to catch a glimpse. He said the space will be blocked off from the public. This collaboration with Tunick is part of the Sagamore's ongoing programming, which routinely invites recognized artists to create original works in a variety of exhibition areas located throughout the hotel's interior spaces, gardens and on its oceanfront beach. Previous collaborations included photographer Massimo Vitali, multimedia artist Roxy Paine and the veteran conceptual artist Yoko Ono. Last year, Ono chose the Sagamore's gardens for her world-renowned interactive piece "Onochord."

Officials say volunteers will only be nude for a short period of time. The nude participants will receive a limited-edition print of the installation for volunteering their bodies and their time. Participants must be 18 or older.

Tunick is widely celebrated for his elaborately posed installations of multiple nude figures within interestingly selected public settings. His temporary site-specific installations have taken place across the globe in cities including Lyon, Melbourne, Mexico City, New York and Barcelona. Tunick has a reputation for gathering thousands of volunteers to take part in his elaborate installations.

About Site-Specific Art

Tunick's temporary site-specific landscapes involve the recruitment of many nude figures arranged in specific public sites and follows the tradition of the popular art of the early 70s known as land art. Embedded directly in the landscape the artist assigns the nude form as a functional art material devised to intervene within its natural surrounds as a way to transform it.

The poetic whole culminating from this sea of individual figures, which are arranged in a sculptural way, further challenges traditionally held stigmas associated with nudity, privacy and social and political issues surrounding art in the public sphere, according to a statement from Tunick.