No Arms And No Legs And Up On Display
Putting disability on a pedestal (image here) doesn't make it beautiful. Now, this woman could be a beautiful human being, but that doesn't make being minus arms and legs attractive in any way, or anything but tragic. Is this art that belongs in the public square? Well, it does make people think, and there's far too little of that these days. I'm all for it. Here's the story by Sarah Lyall, in an IHT link:

The statue, 11 feet, 6 inches, or 4 meters, 15 centimeters, of snow-white Carrara marble, shows the naked and eight-and-a-half-months- pregnant figure of 40-year-old Alison Lapper, a single mother who was born with shortened legs and no arms. Its model is a friend of the artist, Marc Quinn, who has said that Nelson's Column, the focal point of Trafalgar Square, is "the epitome of a phallic male moment" and that he felt "the square needed some femininity."

But "Alison Lapper Pregnant" - juxtaposed as it is with the majestic figures of a king, two generals and the great naval hero Admiral Horatio Nelson - has fueled a sharp discussion here about what is art, the purpose of public monuments and the appropriateness of displaying such a piece in such a singular public space.

...Some like it very much. "I like the concept of having a statue which represents the less-represented part of humanity," said Peter Waugh, a 69-year-old retired teacher from Birmingham. "Lions are all right," he said, referring to the four bronze lions that guard Nelson's Column, "but we've got quite a few of those about."

Another passerby, 75-year-old Ric Morgan, said that he wasn't impressed. "As far as I'm concerned, they could knock some of these generals down - I don't even know who he is or what he's done," he said, gesturing at Havelock. "But with all due respect," he said of Lapper, "the fact that she's disabled is not enough to make it of interest." The statue has also divided British art critics. Most of the complaints have not been head-on: It is hard to declare oneself against disability or against disabled people. That is why Robert Simon, editor of the Art Journal, told the BBC that while he has found Lapper herself to be "very brave," he considered the sculpture "just a repellant artifact." (Lapper's birth defects were caused by a condition called phocomelia.)

"It looks like overused soap on a very large scale," he said.

In The Daily Telegraph, Richard Dorment said that Quinn was "smug and self-righteous." "It's not Miss Lapper whom Quinn has put on a pedestal in the heart of London, but political correctness," he wrote. "He knows full well that anyone who dares to criticize the statue will instantly be accused of prejudice against the disabled."

What a disabled person I know wants is to not be treated "like a Sped" -- to be treated "normally." And perhaps sticking a sculpture of a woman with birth defects in a public square helps people be a bit more casual about the disabled, not feeling compelled to avert their eyes out of embarrassment, or otherwise avoiding them. Then again, if I lived in London, and passed that lady on my way to work every day, I'd probably be quick to find an alternate route.