“Dressing for success” doesn’t always work in academe. Neither does undressing, as nude models in Italy’s art schools have found. Some 30 of the models, weary of unsatisfactory pay and working conditions at state-run art academies and high schools, held a daylong strike last month at the University of Rome La Sapienza.
“There is no respect for our role,” says Antonella Migliorini, 43, who works at the Florence Academy of Fine Arts. “The studios are often cold and dirty. … We don’t get health exams like other public employees, even when we might be exposed to toxic paint.”
The models also have ordinary complaints, about inadequate pensions and a lack of job security. Ms. Migliorini says a drift away from traditional sculpture and drawing and toward multimedia has hurt demand for models. About 50 of the 300 models working at Italian institutions enjoy yearlong contracts, she says. None have permanent positions.
Several female models (“The men were too shy,” says Ms. Migliorini) staged their protest last month outside a meeting attended by Italy’s higher-education minister, Fabio Mussi. They posed as figures from famous works, including Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus and a Degas dancer. One pretended to hang herself from a painter’s easel.
To the disappointment of some spectators, the demonstrators did not disrobe. “We would have been arrested,” Ms. Migliorini says, laughing. Not to mention that they would have been working for free.
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http://chronicle.com Section: Short Subjects Volume 54, Issue 22, Page A5
