Rubbing Shoulders With Lord Nelson

By Jumana Farouky

She's hard to miss. First of all, she's huge--12 ft. tall, 13 tons. She's also naked. And eight months pregnant. Her legs are shrunken and twisted. She doesn't have any arms. Carved out of a single block of Italian marble, she's so white she almost glows. But not everyone has quite got used to the pregnant, armless sculpture that has taken up residence in one of London's most trafficked public spaces, near monuments to the likes of Lord Nelson and King George IV. Sketching the statue for a class, Nisharee Pongpaew, 20, an art student from Brighton, registers her disapproval. "Around her are all these important people," says Pongpaew. "She's not a hero."

But maybe heroes aren't what they used to be. Since its unveiling last month, Alison Lapper Pregnant, a likeness of the disabled 40-year-old British artist and photographer Alison Lapper, has stirred debate across London, not just over the meaning of art but also about the city's evolving identity. To some, the sculpture's prominent display owes more to political correctness than to aesthetic merit--"Purely empty, deeply bland and silly," says art critic Matthew Collings, author of This Is Modern Art. Others call it an uplifting tribute to womankind. But more interesting than the reactions it provokes are the ones it doesn't. If the sculpture has met with less than universal acclaim, it has also failed to spark much outrage or spray-paint protest. In that sense, Alison Lapper Pregnant may reveal a city and a society more comfortable with itself than it has been for a long time.

Apart from a few recent temporary sculptures, the stone pedestal on the northwest corner of Trafalgar Square has stood empty since 1841. Londoners have long had their own ideas of what kind of statue should go on the plinth: Princess Diana! Margaret Thatcher! A giant pigeon! But lacking a permanent solution, a government-appointed committee last year picked two works that would each occupy the spot for up to 18 months. Marc Quinn, 41, creator of Alison Lapper Pregnant, says he wanted his work to reflect classical influences while addressing a contemporary social issue. "Disabled people are largely underrepresented in the history of art," says Quinn. "I wanted to celebrate a different kind of beauty and bodily diversity."

It was hardly guaranteed that the sculpture would be deemed worthy of a place near Britain's greatest military heroes. But Alison Lapper Pregnant embodies the spirit of Trafalgar Square. For centuries, it has been the beating heart of the city, the place where Londoners gather to debate, celebrate and mourn. Only three months ago, people filled it to cheer the announcement that London will be host to the 2012 Olympics; eight days later, they flocked there again, to commemorate the July 7 terrorist bombings. Sandy Nairne, director of the National Portrait Gallery and chairman of the committee that chose the statue, says the judges wanted to honor the "demotic spirit" of the square as much as its history. Alison Lapper Pregnant fits right in: it's a monument to the strength of a human spirit, and it's impossible to ignore.

Londoners seem to appreciate the rebellious nature of Quinn's sculpture. "It's good to push minorities to the front of art," says Jon Bryan, 48, an unemployed Londoner who lost his right arm in a bicycle accident. Twenty years ago, it might have been a different story. During the late 1980s and '90s, a group of upstart conceptualists dubbed the Young British Artists sparked outrage by pushing the boundaries of taste and convention. (Quinn froze casts of his head filled with his own blood.) But as London became increasingly cosmopolitan, the public lost its capacity to be shocked. Says Nairne: "Now London has all these different points of view, and that produces discussion. It's part of the city's growing confidence."

The novelty of Alison Lapper Pregnant is already wearing off. The most attention she gets these days is from the pigeons that perch on her lap. It says something about London's acceptance of change that they will probably like the next sculpture just as much, especially since it's called Hotel for the Birds.