Italian Art School Getting Heat For Unveiling A Mermaid Statue That's "Too Provocative" - Art School Teacher Defends It Saying It's A Tribute To Curvy Women.

The Guardian - The voluptuous statue of a mermaid placed in a square in a fishing village in Puglia, southern Italy, has caused a stir for being “too provocative”. The statue was created by students at the Luigi Rosso art school in Monopoli before being positioned in a square named after the scientist Rita Levi-Montalcini.

The artwork, which is yet to be officially inaugurated, became a target of ridicule after photos taken during its installation were shared on social media.

Adolfo Marciano, the headteacher of the Luigi Rosso art school, defended the statue, saying it was a “tribute to the great majority of women who are curvy”. He explained that the students were tasked by the mayor of Monopoli to create several statues for the town, including one on the theme of the sea.

Marciano said he did not want to cast judgement on the students’ inspiration, but that he viewed the work “as a representation of reality, in this case of the female body”. He added: “You see adverts on television with models who are very thin, but the mermaid is like a tribute to the great majority of women who are curvy, especially in our country. It would have been very bad if we had represented a woman who was extremely skinny.”

"This anaconda don't want none, if you ain't got buns hun" - Sir Mix A Lot

Listen man, Italians appreciate beauty. Perhaps more than anybody else. If that's a crime, then bury us all under the jail. 

Former disgraced governor Cuomo will have you believe that we're all deviants because of our ethnicity. 

But we're not. 

There's a huge difference between class and crass.

Like Playboy and Hustler. There are tasteful ways to appreciate and pay homage to the beauty of women. And the Italians have been doing it for thousands of years.

Mona Lisa. Ever heard of her?

UniversalImagesGroup. Getty Images.

Just last year they were in hot water down near Naples for another statue that was deemed "too sexy"

Source - A statue depicting a scantily dressed woman from a 19th-century poem has sparked a sexism row in Italy.

The bronze statue, which portrays the woman in a transparent dress, was unveiled on Saturday during a ceremony attended by the former prime minister Giuseppe Conte in Sapri, in the southern Campania region.

The work by the sculptor Emanuele Stifano is a tribute to La Spigolatrice di Sapri (The Gleaner of Sapri), written by the poet Luigi Mercantini in 1857. The poem is based on the story of a failed expedition against the Kingdom of Naples by Carlo Pisacane, one of the first Italian socialist thinkers.

Ivan Romano. Getty Images.

They argued that the statue reflected nothing of the anti-Bourbon revolution nor the “self-determination of a woman who chooses not to go to work in order to take sides against the oppressor”.

Stifano defended his work, writing on Facebook that if it had been up to him the statue would have been “completely naked … simply because I am a lover of the human body”. He said it was “useless” to try to explain artwork to those “who absolutely only want to see depravity”.

But back to the mermaid statue everybody's up in arms about. 

Who fucking cares?

It's a mermaid. A fictional character (depending on who you believe). And the artists even said they made it voluptuous to pay homage to the many curvaceous women of Calabria and Bari in southern Italy.