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Drake Tungsten
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Knee deep in alien womyn...
Oct 2001
time: 14:37
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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...
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The similarities don't stop there. You got called a retard when you were young, too. |
I expect better from you Laz.
Last edited by Drake Tungsten on 19-09-2005 at 13:13
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Cort Haus
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London
Apr 2002
time: 05:37
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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.
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http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CAD61.htm
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molly bloom
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Lundenwic
Oct 2001
time: 15:37
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...thalidomide victims... |
and just in case we're not sure:
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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 ?
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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.
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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 ?
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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.
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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:
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Tory MP Julie Kirkbride, claimed that "the politically correct lobby has prevailed". |
Courtesy of the Daily Mail
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One expert called it horrible and said it looked like a slimy bar of soap. Another said it was kitsch. |
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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/mai.../16/ixhome.html
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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
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I was horrified to hear some of the remarks against this yesterday on TV. |
Eef, UK
Courtesy the B.B.C.
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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 ?
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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.
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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.
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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 !
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..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.
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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.
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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 ?
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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.
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shawnmmcc
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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.
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C0ckney
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Big Up The Macedonian Massive
Apr 2000
time: 05:37
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quote:
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.
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shawnmmcc
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LOM - they already dedicated one to him, did you miss the controversy several years back? The Germans were a mite bit - nonplussed about it, shall we say.
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molly bloom
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Lundenwic
Oct 2001
time: 15:37
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quote:
Originally posted by lord of the mark
"More fool John Willets- he can't have ever travelled anywhere in Europe where Jews were interned or shipped to concentration camps."
Im not sure what the above is in reference to.
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It was in reference to the notion that monumental sculptures or memorials can't or shouldn't be 'controversial'- as if somehow there's a huge national or public consensus about what is and isn't controversial or 'suitable' for memorializing.
Are you familiar with the trials and tribulations of Rachel Whiteread's Holocaust memorial in Vienna, for instance ?
quote:
Rachel Whiteread's Holocaust Memorial was dedicated in Vienna on Oct. 25 [see "Front Page," Dec. '96, Mar. '96]. Despite the rancor that had caused four years of delays, in the end, the memorial was embraced by former opponents, according to Austrian press accounts. The blocky concrete structure resembles an inside-out library, with the imprint of rows of books, spines facing in, lining the outer walls. Inscribed around the base are the names of Nazi concentration camps. The work's facade bears a dedication in German, Hebrew and English to the 65,000 Austrian Jews killed in the Holocaust.
Construction was held up by opposition from all sides: local residents protested that the structure was ugly, would take away their parking spaces and attract trouble; the Jewish community complained that it played on stereotypes of Jews being "people of the book"; Jorg Haider's right-wing Freedom Party simply didn't want it. Located in the middle of the Judenplatz, the memorial rests over the remnants of a synagogue that was burned down in 1421.
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http://www.findarticles.com/p/artic..._89/ai_69058386
There was a facsinating documentary following her around what seemd like endless conferences, delays and debates in Austria.
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Id say a public sculpture of Bomber Harris would be a mistake. |
Too late- it's installed at the end of Strand, outside the church of St. Clement Danes.
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The statue, which is located outside St Clement Dane’s RAF church, had to be kept under 24 hour guard for a period of months as it was often vandalised. |
http://www.ukattraction.com/london/...rris-statue.htm
Last edited by molly bloom on 20-09-2005 at 15:58
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18-09-2005 16:15
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