The Plight of Art Models
Also: the troubling trend of "Crusadercore," pet monkeys in Ancient Rome, and what's really going on in those Vanity Fair photos of Trump's top advisors?
Good morning. They're among the “blue-collar workers of the arts,” one figure-drawing model told Hyperallergic Staff Writer Isa Farfan, describing long days of holding difficult poses that are a feat of physical and mental strength. Yet, in many cases, art models can barely make ends meet. Farfan's featured story today is a deep dive into the often undervalued profession and how its practitioners, often artists themselves, are taking matters into their own hands to fight for higher pay and recognition.
We've got a stacked issue today — Emma Cieslik on why "Crusadercore," a visual trend of the online far-right, is cause for concern; Lisa Yin Zhang's brilliant take on the Vanity Fair photos of Trump officials; and our perhaps equally horror-inducing look back at the president's attacks on art and culture this year.
Read on, and remember to share your thoughts — Hyperallergic Members can leave comments on articles.
—Valentina Di Liscia, senior editor
Art Models Struggle for a Living Wage and Recognition
Anyone who's been to art school — and even those of us who simply dabble — is familiar with the dynamics of a live figure drawing class: Students sit back and draw during timed segments while a hired model, often nude, maintains postures that help the artists sharpen their grasp of the human body. But I bet most of us know very little about art modeling as a career, and even less about the challenges it entails.
Hyperallergic's Isa Farfan interviewed nine art models about their experiences in the field, including members of a new coalition at the Art Students League of New York advocating for better wages and working conditions.
Nevada Museum of Art Presents the 2026 Art + Environment Summit: Under Pressure
This three-day gathering features Kim Stanley Robinson, Jeffrey Gibson, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Rose B. Simpson, and many more. April 16–18, 2026.
News
- In 2025, Hyperallergic’s reporting chronicled President Trump's funding cuts and threats to artistic freedom in the United States. Read our month-by-month timeline of the administration's attacks on culture.
- The recent archaeological discovery of monkey burials for pet monkeys at the Red Sea port of Berenike on the Egyptian coast deepens our understanding of trade networks between India and the Roman Empire.
Opinion
The Trump Administration Looks Even Worse Up Close
Chris Anderson's Hitchcockian portraits of Trump's inner circle for Vanity Fair, and online denizens' myriad interpretations, are flooding my feed. But Associate Editor Lisa Yin Zhang doesn't see the "monstrous" quality that many viral takes identify. Rather, she sees them as "anxious, incompetent actors on a stage set, ill at ease in these compositions, over their heads in their positions, and visibly degraded for the vicious agenda they perpetuate.”
Reach New Creative Heights at SVA Continuing Education
The School of Visual Arts in NYC offers more than 200 in-person and online courses, along with 10+ artist residency programs.
Must-Read
Why We Should All Be Worried About "Crusadercore"
If you've seen merch or AI slop depicting bro-y knights in armor, that's "Crusadercore," writes Emma Cieslik, who warns of a dangerous obsession with Crusader iconography in the manosphere and other right-wing corners of the internet. Though not entirely new — see Joe Maloney's 1949 cartoon of figures fighting such scourges as "secularism" and "communism" — the imagery has now “become a calling card for modern Christian nationalist violence more broadly,” Cieslik writes, from the January 6 insurrection to official US military accounts.
Member Comment
Vicki Meek on Charissa Terranova's "The Sinister Plan to Demolish a Brutalist Icon in Dallas":
TCU School of Art Offers Fully Funded Graduate Study
MA and MFA students at this university in Fort Worth, Texas, are trained for impactful careers in contemporary art, museums, and the broader arts field.
In Memoriam
Remembering Ceal Floyer, Michele Singer Reiner, and Christine Choy
This week, we honor a conceptualist who made the ordinary human, a wide-ranging photographer, and a filmmaker who made space for others. | Lisa Yin Zhang
From the Archive
A Defiant Gaza Biennale Opens in New York City
From Gaza to the World at Recess in Brooklyn, the show's first North American stop, brings together works by 25 Palestinian artists. Catch the exhibition before it closes this weekend, and revisit Diba Mohtasham's report from the opening in September.
