A sculpture to sum up London?

Thankyou to whoever edited my post (again!)

:-)

Posted about 1 year ago by faith

An ex-boyfriend and I were walking through Soho on our way to work one morning, and came across a large pile of vomit with a sparkly pink cowboy hat balanced carefully on top. He observed how it should be on a postcard with “Welcome to London” written above it.

Posted about 1 year ago by iris

If London could be summed up by a sculpture then it would be pretty dull city.

Posted about 1 year ago by cutta

it would have to be like the revolving plinth they had in Traflagar Square & change every day, only never feature anything as crap or unappealing as the thalidomide statue that was eventually chosen to live there.

Posted about 1 year ago by AdrianCooper

How about someone being mugged by Ken Livingstone?

Posted about 1 year ago by LittleEmily

Alison Lapper has a chromosome disorder, wasn’t anything to do with thalidomide.

I liked it, was a refreshing change from a duke on a horse or some other establishment figure with little relevance to any of us.

Posted about 1 year ago by Mockernee

Sorry, had totally failed to take that in before.

However, I still don’t think that’s a good statue. Other than the phyical presence gained by its size, I don’t think its got much going for it.

It has no more relevance to me than a dead guy on a horse would.

Posted about 1 year ago by AdrianCooper

El Cid is the only dead guy on a horse I can think of, and he certainly has little relevance to modern-day Londoners.

Posted about 1 year ago by BraveNewMalden

LittleEmily, Would that ‘someone’ being mugged by Ken Livngstone be those who pay through the nose for their daily commute on TfL?

Posted about 1 year ago by cobo04

OK, I’d hate for anyone to think I’m not totally riddled with cynicism and have blood so jaded it barely flows through me, but Lapper’s inspiring to me. Not because of her condition, her work or ‘cos she’s raised her son single-handed (or less, sorry), but because she’s done all this while still being contradictory, chippy, confrontational, irrational and defiantly not a poster child for disabilities in general. I love her for that. And she has nice tits, nicer than the statue manages to convey.

All that aside, occasionally when I passed by the plinth I’d have a moment’s reflection on how come there’s a severely physically disabled person up there for all to see and admire (if they like), but amongst the thousand or so people in the square at that time there’s no more than 1, perhaps 2 actual disabled people visible? It reminds me that the severely disabled are still criminally under-catered for in London, as in the UK as a whole, as citizens, workers or visitors. Maybe this irony wasn’t intentional, maybe it isn’t even there but to me subjectively, but it gave me pause for thought anyway, made me grateful for my physical well-being and a little bit shameful about my complicity in this hiding away of our less fortunate. Which the Earl of Albemarle pointing the way to a golf sale just didn’t do.

Posted about 1 year ago by Mockernee

I couldn’t have said it better myself Mockernee. (Obviously it goes without saying that you are still cyincal and jaded and probably mean to children too.)

Posted about 1 year ago by savannah

According to some tube maps, there is only one station on the Circle Line accessible to wheelchairs (Westminster). That’s handy.

Back to topic. London already has its perfect sculpture. Quantum Cloud, by Anthony Gormley.

This could represent the energy of London, centered on a human form. The fact that it’s secreted away on the arse-end of Greenwich Peninsula says something about how much of the city is unknown or hidden away.

Posted about 1 year ago by MattFromLondonist

Posted about 1 year ago by MattFromLondonist

Mockernee – I agree with you whole-heartedly about Alison Lapper and her approach however I just found it distasteful that the only way we could have an image of woman represented in trafalgar square was nude, disabled and pregnant. Fairplay to all of these things in and of themselves, but what about other great women of the city?

Hmmm…perhaps I should start a new conversation?

Or should I just leave work now and go to weightwatchers…

via the chippy…

Posted about 1 year ago by freedapeople

I agree Freeda, there should be more representations of everyday folk in all their forms, be they women, men, even the Welsh. But that shouldn’t detract from Lapper so much as further damn the rest of ‘em. Though I did read a while back that a lot of London’s statues of the likes of Wellington or Nelson were paid for by voluntary donations from the populace, so maybe at the time they had resonance.

Not that I’m advocating democracy coming anywhere near the public arts today, you just know it’d end with a bronze bust of Judy Finnegan looming over the Mall.

Posted about 1 year ago by Mockernee

Not that I’m advocating democracy coming anywhere near the public arts today, you just know it’d end with a bronze bust of Judy Finnegan looming over the Mall.

And central London would turn into an outdoors version of Madame Tussuads. I haven’t been there since I was a kid & was looking at their site the other day, only to discover that its now become a shrine to reality TV & Heat magazine. When did that happen?

Posted about 1 year ago by AdrianCooper

Seeing La Finnagan’s bust, bronzed or otherwise, disturbs me to my very innards.

I’m with Cutta- I don’t think London’s inate London-ness can be summed up in a sculpture.

Posted about 1 year ago by Mamfer

Not to be ridiculously Telegraph, and not that Lapper’s story isn’t individually inspiring, but there was already a statue of a disabled person in Trafalgar Square.

I’ll give you some clues. It’s in the middle. On a big column.

Posted about 1 year ago by esotericbadger