After the ridiculous David affair, I must say I kind of like this Italian statue. Some disagree.
I don’t get how the geometry of the butt-crack works out with that tail. With humans, the split goes down and divides the legs. What’s going on here with just the one tail?
The Starbucks siren could have a proper gluteal cleft, with her split tail:
How does this one work?
Lots of animals have just have one tail. I haven’t seen a mess of mermaids.
The town needs to start a tradition of writing little prayers to Poseidon and tucking them in there.
Well, now we know where the penis shaped iceberg was heading.
If you put that same statue in a video game people would be claiming it demeans women though.
I have no problem with the statue on moral grounds or anything. I just think to be accurate, since the bottom half of a mermaid is fish, she should have a cloaca, not a hiney.
I’ve never understood the attraction of mermaids. The lower half of a mermaid being a fish is inconvenient in many ways. But even worse are the mermaids where the upper half is a fish.
Really? I’ve always found inverted mermaids quite sexy. Big eyes, big pouty mouth…
It was originally mermaid porn.
I have no taste in art. I also am not so much of a bluenose. Were I to encounter such a statue, I would look, giggle, and move on. Besides, touristy area are supposed to have various monstrosities.
You got something against fishhead? 
(Courtesy of a friend’s interpretation of Shel Silverstein.)
(FYI, my comment was a reference to skit comedy, but I still can’t post a YouTube link)
I don’t think it’s “too provocative”: After all, nude human women are a popular subject of statuary and other art. But I do think it’s ridiculous. Aside from the issue of how a mermaid has a human butt at all, the breasts are not, as the art-school head claims, “a tribute to the majority of women who are curvy”. Most natural breasts aren’t nearly that large, and even of those that are, they’re not shaped that way. And “It would have been very bad if we had represented a woman who was extremely skinny.”? Aside from the breasts and butt, this mermaid is skinny.
[Moderating]
Oh, and this thread is probably a better fit for Cafe Society, being about a work of art, and all. I’ll move it.
For those who missed this….
It’s not provocative in the sense of “challenging, edgy”. It’s just tasteless. To me, cis female, it looks like a person sitting on a pair of beach balls, cradling a pair of bowling balls.
My perception is that most things called “a tribute to curvy women” created by a man or men, are going to be, essentially, pornography, whether arty or not. There must be exceptions but they aren’t coming to mind. Fishy or not, it’s going to be about exaggerated body parts that titillate men.
Relevant: a blog piece about mermaids as female archetype. Mermaids as a pan-global myth of water as feminine, the mermaid as a product of the male gaze. If you like that sort of thing.
From the article:
“It looks like a mermaid with two silicone breasts and, above all, a huge arse never seen before on a mermaid. At least not any I know.”
How many mermaids does he know?
If people are just put off by the butts and boobs then, sure. Claiming some “That’s not how a mermaid should be!” thing seems silly. There’s no canonical reference (much less biological) to where the fishy tail needs to start and I’ve seen images where the scales start from under the groin to clear up over the breasts (eliminating the need for starfish/clamshell bras).
Exactly! Curvy here means exaggerated hips and bust with a tiny waist. So last century.
If they want to honor curvy women where is she, the modern curvy women, the ones with fuller rounder figures of all proportions?
And the butt cheeks on the piece are so comical as are the cannon shot they’re cradling.
I’d give it a B-
I prefer The Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen. It’s a work of art with broad appeal, based on the popular Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale, often retold in different times and settings.