Maybe it’s because sculptors don’t have enough practice making monuments dedicated to women that explains why two recent examples have sparked so much outrage. Occam’s razor: it’s the logical explanation.
The latest monument, this one by Emanuele Stifano, is supposed to honor female field workers of Sapri, Italy, who resisted the oppressive Bourbon rule in the 19th-century. What you get instead is a half-undressed, seductively posed woman that conjures up a streetwalker.
Of course, prostitution is a line of work, too. But surely a figure looking like she does business in a red-light district is not what former prime minister Giuseppe Conte had in mind when he unveiled the statue last Saturday.
Work clothes signal the work
Not only is the female figure skimpily clad, but what there is of her clothes is so tight-fitting that you don’t have to imagine what she looks like stripped. This is no tribute to working women, and it’s Emanuele Stifano’s wet dream.
Italy’s history-making female field workers were commended in a 19th-century poem by Luigi Mercantini, who wrote it from a female point of view. Stifano clearly ignored that history.
Not surprisingly, the sculpture has made women mad. Laura Boldrini, a politician elected in 2013 to the Chamber of Deputies, tweeted, “How can institutions accept the representation of a woman as a sexual body?”
Boldrini’s female colleagues are calling for the statue to be taken down.
In a statement, they asked why they should “suffer the humiliation” of seeing themselves sexualized and “devoid of soul.”
They also object to the lack of connection between the statue and Mercantini’s poem about female courage, not carnality.
Sticking up for himself, Stifano posted a message on Facebook saying that if he were allowed “complete creative liberty,” he would have left all of the woman’s clothes off.
Why? “Because I am a lover of the human body.”
Well, gee, Emanuele, so am I, but if I were commissioned to commemorate, say, a male field worker, I hope I’d resist undressing him for the occasion.
According to Sapri mayor Antonio Gentile, there was a review process for Stifano’s concept. In a statement, he said that nobody raised an objection to it.
Where have I heard all this before?
If this story sounds familiar, you probably remember the protest in Mexico City against a proposed monument to indigenous women. Sculptor Pedro Reyes’s idea for this commemoration was a 30-foot-tall head without a body. And while there’s no nudity, taking a head off a body isn’t decent, either.
Of course, the question these two monuments raise goes unanswered: do you have to be a woman to honor women? British sculptor Maggie Hambling made the answer obvious by honoring the leading English feminist Mary Wollstonecraft stark naked.
Portraying Wollstonecraft without a stitch is like celebrating the work of American feminist Gloria Steinem with her likeness in the buff. Which is worse - honoring a woman with a nude statue or in skimpy, clinging clothes? Pick one. So far, those are the only choice these days.
