October 10, 2005
In Trafalgar Square, Much Ado About Statuary
By SARAH LYALL
LONDON, Oct. 9 - The new statue was bound to make a vivid impression in Trafalgar Square, a place as redolent of past military glory as any in London. For one thing, it depicts someone who is not male, not wearing a uniform and not dead.
But there's more. The statue, 11 feet 7 inches of snow-white Carrara marble, shows the naked, eight-and-a-half-month-pregnant figure of 40-year-old Alison Lapper, a single mother who was born with shortened legs and no arms. Ms. Lapper is a friend of the sculptor, 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 thought "the square needed some femininity." But "Alison Lapper Pregnant" - juxtaposed as it is with the majestic figures of a king, two generals and the naval hero Lord Nelson - has fueled a sharp discussion here about art, the purpose of public monuments, and the appropriateness of displaying such a piece in such a singular public space.
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As they stroll around Trafalgar Square, passersby look at the statue of Ms. Lapper about as readily as they ignore the one of Sir Henry Havelock, a general who helped suppress the Indian rebellion of 1857. (He is also known for distributing Bibles to his troops.) If nothing else, the work succeeds - in the same way that Damien Hirst's shark-in-a-tank piece did in the early 1990's - because it is noticed and it gets people talking. Some like it very much. "I like the concept of having a statue which represents the less-represented part of humanity," said Peter Waugh, 69, a 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."
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In The Observer, though, Rachel Cooke praised the sculpture's "elegant proportions."
"By choosing to portray her naked and pregnant, Quinn has given us an Everywoman," she wrote. "You look at her face, her breasts and her swollen belly, and only afterwards do you wonder about her limbs."
When the work was unveiled, Ms. Lapper was there to see it, along with Parys, 5, the son she was carrying when she posed for Mr. Quinn. (She has been married and divorced; Parys was born after a brief relationship with a man who she said had tried to persuade her to have an abortion.) Ms. Lapper, a painter, reacted with jaunty cheerfulness to the sight of her naked marble self. "At least I didn't get there by slaying people," she said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/10/arts/design/10traf.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=printIt seems like the statue is interesting in challenging not only who gets to be a statue in Trafalger or any other Square - but also - the idea of perfection. Marble statues - esp. of women - have long probably been akin to fashion models in magazines. A marble statue has a way of challenging 3000-4000 years of "propaganda" that other mediums could not touch.
I also can't think of any pregnant Greek or Roman statues. It's about time to have that challenged.
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