WTF is nude looping? Performance artist Matthew Silver explains

While New York Fashion Week was in full swing last weekend, a few other things were swinging outside Manhattan’s Rivington Design House during a public naked performance art piece.

Performance artists Matthew Silver and Fritz Donnelly came up with the concept behind “nude looping” in which they and a dozen or so other men and women gathered in the design house’s gallery space to “loop” around in their birthday suits.

“Looping is like if you see these people acting loopy — it’s like an improv,” Silver said while explaining to Metro what exactly looping was. For the most part Silver explained that looping was a series of repeated games and interactions, all of which were improvised. As for the name?

“I just called it ‘acting wacky’ in a costume or underwear,” Silver recalled as he elaborated on the activity’s namesake. “We were doing it in front of this Mexican restaurant called La Lupe and [Fritz Donnelly] just attached the name “looping” to it. For me it’s just the experience of being on drugs, without being on drugs.”

The performance on Saturday was the first naked looping in the city, which Silver explained was a somewhat coincidental commentary on Fashion Week.

“We felt like it was a good message. Learn to appreciate and love the naked body, don’t keep it covered all the time,” Silver explained.“If we we were all walking around naked we’d get over the fact that we all look different. Most people do not look like the models in the magazines — even the models don’t even look like them in the magazines because they’re constantly being photoshopped.”

“Even if we had naked bodies walking around we would still have fashion,” Silver conceded. “It’s still a fun thing.”

“Like body hair fashion?” Metro asked.

“Exactly!”

Matt Lee is a Web producer for Metro New York. He writes about almost everything and anything. Talk to him (or yell at him) on Twitter so he doesn’t feel lonely@mattlee2669.

Note: A previous version of this article cited only Matthew Silver as the creator of nude looping. The concept was developed in collaboration with perfromance artist Fritz Donnelly. The article has been edited to reflect that.