Pregnant Nude On Plinth Provokes Puking

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
I make a living for myself and have a full sex life. I'm a hero.

The similarities don't stop there. You got called a ****** when you were young, too.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
The sexual possibilities for the limbless are well documented. I saw a programme many years ago about thalidomide victims in their late teens. Lack of an interesting sex life was not among their problems. Not for the girls, anyway.

Wow! That entitles you to describe a woman you've never met as a victim !


Way to go to miss out on her having a life and a career and not just being an easy category for you to deride.

I make a living for myself and have a full sex life

Ms Rosy Palm and her five sisters don't count.

But I'm sure everyone on Apolyton would love to know what disadvantages and disabilities (in equal measure to the ones Alison Lapper surmounted) you've transcended.

Congenital or acquired ? Mental or physical ? Both ?

It's unfair to make us speculate, so do tell us all.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by molly bloom



It says a lot about someone that they can see Alison Lapper (who doesn't describe herself as a victim, but as an artist) as unheroic- born in an era when her birth mother was told to give her up for adoption because she was told the baby was 'undoubtedly' retarded, as well as physically disabled, and where Ms Lapper had to undergo numerous 'treatments' designed to help her approximate an idea of 'normality' with artificial arms, hooks and legs, she did indeed do something heroic, by transcending societal ideas of what she was capable of, and by making a living for herself, and by having a full sex life- something that many able-bodied people feel is 'disgusting'.

It says a lot about some people that they can't see heroism in the lives of 'ordinary' people who do extraordinary things.

http://www.amfpa.com/html/show.php?appl=KUENSTLER&lang=2&mid=1288&i_artist=4101

Ms. Lapper's work:

an intelligent post among mentally retarded posts

[Cort Haus]

Wow! That entitles you to describe a woman you've never met as a victim !

No, that comment about that thalidomides didn't have anything to do with Lapper.

[Drake Tungsten]

But I'm sure everyone on Apolyton would love to know what disadvantages and disabilities (in equal measure to the ones Alison Lapper surmounted) you've transcended.

Congenital or acquired ? Mental or physical ? Both ?

It's unfair to make us speculate, so do tell us all.

Overcoming a disability to achieve a normal life does not make one "heroic" by any stretch of the imagination. Is Alison Lapper inspiring? Courageous? Tough? Probably all three. But is she heroic? I would say she isn't, unless she's done something that transcends the usual limits of humanity. Making a living or having a sex life is neither...

The similarities don't stop there. You got called a ****** when you were young, too.

I expect better from you Laz.

[Cort Haus]

Disability on a pedestal
Marc Quinn's sculpture of Alison Lapper in Trafalgar Square creates a tension between what we are supposed to think, and what we really feel.

by James Heartfield


Twelve-feet high in marble, Marc Quinn's sculpture of Alison Lapper naked and pregnant displays her disability, shrunken legs and no arms. The work has been hailed as daring and controversial.


But monumental art is not supposed to be controversial, according to the critic John Willets. He made the point years ago that the public placing of an artwork made it important that it reflected consensus. The bust of Nelson Mandela erected on the South Bank in the early 1980s illustrates the problem. While heroes on horses tend to be taken for granted, Mandela's bust was regularly vandalised, making it more like a performance piece or kinetic art than a monument (Mandela's rising stature has changed the nature of the statue since).


The monuments to Lenin and Stalin in the Eastern Bloc were supposed to cement their places in history. But instead they illustrated the transience of political fortunes. The sculpture of Alison Lapper looks like a monument, but characteristic of our own indecisive times, it will stand for just 18 months. Expect that the decision to take it down, though, will also be deferred.


Quinn has often shown an interest in the way that the material can pull against the form of a work, as with his head moulded out of his own frozen blood. Rendering flesh in marble has always had a measure of perversity about it. Movement and colour is so central to what people are, that marble makes them seem like they are dead, or mummified, like the people petrified in Vesuvius' lava.


Does Quinn intend that the marble substance, or the monumental style should pull against the subject matter? It is not clear whether Alison's heroically posed head is meant ironically or literally. If the former, it is cheap; if the latter, it is cheese.


Though the choice of subject seems controversial, there has been surprisingly little opposition, just the manufacture of 'controversy'. In fact, there is a strong consensus that the disabled are heroic. Putting Lapper alongside Nelson seems to say that her struggle is comparable to his. No doubt the challenges are great, but the outcome is not the same. Maybe there ought to be a sculpture to the people she employs to look after her and her son.


What tensions there are in the popular judgement of Alison Lapper's sculpture are not likely to be made explicit in public controversy. Rather, the tension will be between the public's explicit approval of the disability agenda, and its emotional reaction against the distortions of the body. Considering the popularity of corrective plastic surgery, there seems to be an unspoken preference for the body beautiful that clashes with the lip service played to disability.


Unfortunately, that is likely to be expressed in graffiti precisely because it cannot be said out loud. It is a tension between what we are supposed to think and what we really feel - and in this instance the official stamp of approval must be seen to win out, even if it convinces few people at an emotional level. We are supposed to think about her struggle with disability, but our evil side might be thinking: 'What kind of man had sex with her?'


As a work of art, the sculpture is just unclear. Either a pregnant woman or a disabled woman would have been striking. But both together are just confusing. Is she pregnant, or just fat? You cannot tell what the distortions are caused by. And if you were to see it without the attending explanations, you would be forgiven for thinking that it was the artist, not nature, that had twisted the body out of recognition.

http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CAD61.htm

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten


I expect better from you Laz.

I doubt the feeling's mutual.

[Drake Tungsten]

I assume you noticed I didn't say the same thing about you. Laz's insults are usually top-notch, much better than that one. Your lame masturbation crack, however, was sadly par for the course.

[molly bloom]

...thalidomide victims...

and just in case we're not sure:

For me the statue represents the contemporary cult of victimhood - where heroic status is confered upon people who have had things happen to them rather than by doing something heroic.

Cort Haus


So let's be clear- Franklin D. Roosevelt is a ' polio victim '; Beethoven is 'a victim of deafness ', Nelson a 'victim of acquired disabilities' and so on.

Didn't any of them do anything other than have an inherited disability, or an acquired disability ? Didn't they actually have whole lives ?

But monumental art is not supposed to be controversial, according to the critic John Willets.

More fool John Willets- he can't have ever travelled anywhere in Europe where Jews were interned or shipped to concentration camps.

Perhaps he missed out on the installation of the memorial to 'Bomber' Harris too- I do seem to recall that causing just a degree of controversy.

The sculpture of Alison Lapper looks like a monument, but characteristic of our own indecisive times, it will stand for just 18 months.

What's indecisive about an already established rolling programme of installations on a plinth that's been devoid of an occupant (other than the odd pigeon or protester) for YEARS ?

But the fourth has stood empty since King William IV died without leaving enough funds to have his own statue erected, and no one else stepped in.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/745962.stm

Good grief.

Though the choice of subject seems controversial, there has been surprisingly little opposition, just the manufacture of 'controversy' .

Well perhaps we just read different news items and hear different responses- and perhaps this person's living in an alternate London where the plinth hasn't been vacant for years, and controversial memorials haven't been erected.

Let's see who's been 'manufacturing' controversy:

Tory MP Julie Kirkbride, claimed that "the politically correct lobby has prevailed".

Courtesy of the Daily Mail

One expert called it horrible and said it looked like a slimy bar of soap. Another said it was kitsch.

Robin Simon, editor of the British Art Journal, told Radio 4's Today programme: "I think it is horrible. Not because of the subject matter, I hasten to add. I have a lot of time for Alison Lapper. She is very brave. It is just a repellent artefact."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/09/16/nlapp16.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/09/16/ixhome.html

Touching story but do we really need to have her staring down at us from Trafalgar Square. This really is a farce. Leave the plinth empty - what's wrong with a bit of air. Just more taxes wasted.

Dominic Moore

I was horrified to hear some of the remarks against this yesterday on TV.

Eef, UK

Courtesy the B.B.C.

Is she pregnant, or just fat? You cannot tell what the distortions are caused by.

Oh, please. Eight months pregnant ? Oh, perhaps she just has a case of dyspepsia, or over-eating ?

The sculpture, “Alison Lapper Pregnant”, depicts Lapper nude when she was eight months pregnant.

Let's hope James Heartfield isn't intending to sire any children, or at least gets some decent sex education beforehand.

The notion that this is 'just' a concept installation about the 'disabled', rather than of a woman who is more than just a category, is rather patronising- but then Ms. Lapper's used to the 'pat on the head, poor thing' approach- just as well judging by some of the responses here.

It does not take an art historian to catch the allusion to the Venus de Milo - perhaps the best-known depiction of female beauty - in both her work and in Quinn's sculpture.

Although it may have bypassed some people- along with all news of the previous TEMPORARY installations on the plinth.

Putting Lapper alongside Nelson seems to say that her struggle is comparable to his.

That's not just a stretch in an attempt to further a shaky argument, it's grotesque.

It doesn't take a genius to see that Lord Nelson is on a monumental Corinthian column 170 feet up in the air.

Unless you're a steeplejack or equipped with binoculars, you're not going to see much in the way of detail- the comparison is more likely to be between the vacant plinth- and surprise!- the statuary on the other plinths.

Two none-too-well known military figures and an undistinguished monarch- and of them, one statue was intended for Marble Arch, and one attracted its own share of criticism.

Perhaps Mr. Heartfield (with his inability to distinguish pregnancy from obesity) might revise his opinion, and come to the conclusion that Quinn is offering a contrast between Ms. Lapper and a notoriously obese monarch !

..the disability agenda...

Wow. Imagine, people with disabilities (that well known secret society, working covertly in underground cells) have an 'AGENDA' .

Could it be an agenda that asks that they be seen as persons, rather than things acted upon, or categories ?

Might it just be that it's an agenda that gets them, among other rights elsewhere taken for granted, to have equal access to public buildings and public transport despite the best efforts of architects and town planners to exclude them due to ignorant oversights ?

Whatever next ?

They'll be asking to be spoken to, rather than at, or demanding sex lives.

Overcoming a disability to achieve a normal life does not make one "heroic" by any stretch of the imagination. Making a living or having a sex life is neither.

I suppose then it depends on the imagination, and on the kind of living made. Still, not sharing your disabilities with us though, Drake ? A tad unfair, isn't it ?

You know though, I could have sworn I mentioned other things she had done- and done despite the best efforts of those who should have known better to diminish her in her own eyes.

Hers was an unplanned - but very welcome - pregnancy.
For much of her life, she believed she would be unable to bear children, having been told that she was too disabled to have a safe pregnancy.

Never mind, Alison- someone will have 'pity' on you, won't they ?

The father, whom she met "the normal way, in a bar", is no longer on the scene - "and, yes, he is able-bodied. Why does everyone ask that?"

I think this thread reveals why.

[C0ckney]

The father, whom she met "the normal way, in a bar..."

****ing hell , i'll bet he never drank in that pub again

[Mr. Harley]

Damn you, Drakle - you made the point about Heroics I tried to make yesterday and gave up on, deleting without posting. I agree with you completely, and I would apply those comments to my sister who is burned. That's why I had to clear my post, it just wasn't working.

IMHO my sister is not heroic. She has that thin, fine Scots-Irish skin and freckles. Where she has skin left. Unfortunately, she scars horribly and may even form keloidal scars, on top of the damn burns. She came home from grade school more than once in tears because of being called lizard face and worse. And in case most of you don't know it, children can be horribly cruel beasts.

Drake is right. She is inspiring, couageous, and tough. She had that forced on her, either leading a normal life through a combination of those traits, or becoming a "victim". I will never forget talking to her, me in my early twenties and her in high school, talking about would she ever get a date.

I explained that it was unlikely in High School, but as she got older and was in college, etc. she would find men that could look past her burns and scars. That's why her husband getting shot in Iraq REALLY SUCKED, she had finally found that special guy and he's shot. Most guys are like Cockney et al, and I think it would do them some real good to live in the shoes of someone like my sister, or Ms. Lapper if only for a day.

[Drake Tungsten]

Drake is right.

Dear god, what is happening here?

[C0ckney]

Originally posted by shawnmmcc
Most guys are like Cockney et al, and I think it would do them some real good to live in the shoes of someone like...Ms. Lapper if only for a day.

i don't think her shoes would fit me tbh.

[Mr. Harley]

Duh.

[SpencerH]

I dont think Trafalgar Square is the best site for this piece.