Monthly media and arts column

When English teachers are wondering what speaking and listening task to set their GCSE classes, one popular solution is the ‘plinth debate’.

This gets students discussing who or what should be displayed on the empty fourth plinth of Trafalgar Square in central London. Among the claims that David Beckham or the Queen Mother should be the worthy winners, I doubt that any 15-year-old ever suggested that a naked, pregnant, disabled woman should be displayed.

The three other plinths at the corners of the square display Empire-scale equestrian statues; two of 19th-century imperial generals and one of King George IV. The fourth was left empty since King William IV died without leaving enough funds to have his own statue erected and no one else seemed to want to use the space.

But in May 2000, Ken Livingstone decided that a panel should be set up to consider showcasing contemporary art that celebrated the present rather than the past. This brought controversy in itself, since the location is a monument to historical events. Furthermore, why should the public be forced to come face to face with the sort of art that they could usually choose to avoid, hidden safely away in art galleries.

Imperfect body

Until now, the projects that have been displayed have been largely uncontroversial. Yet when the 4.5 m high white marble statue of Alison Lapper goes on public display in the coming months, there are many who will object. When Alison posed for the artist, Marc Quinn, she was eight months pregnant and missing two limbs. The resulting form is arresting in its blunt portrayal of disabled reality.

If the idea of displaying an imperfect body seems so strange, one only needs to look up to the crowning glory of Nelson’s column itself to see a man with only one arm. The difference between the two subjects is that one lost an arm through war and the other lost her limbs through malformation in the womb. The Bible helps us to understand that although each of these two human beings was created by God, knit together in their mothers’ wombs, each has been deeply affected by the presence of sin in the world. Nelson’s arm was taken off after military engagement in 1797 with a Spanish ship near Santa Cruz, some years before his death at Trafalgar in 1805 where he commanded the British navy to victory. Alison Lapper was born without arms yet refused to wear prosthetic limbs. We learn in God’s word that the reason for her disability isn’t down to a single sinful act of man but as a general result of the fall that put man so distant from God that his perfect intentions for our world could not always be seen. The treatment that she received from the age of seven weeks when she was put into a children’s home for the severely disabled showed an absence of human understanding of God’s love and compassion. Both Nelson and Lapper have something to say about the reality of sin and suffering.

Awkward reality

One of the greatest objections to the plinth commission is that it is ‘more message than art’. Yet the message is one about the modern obsession with beauty and perfection that Christians welcome. Disabled bodies remind us that the gloss of the magazines and the easy ironing out of mistakes in their flawless models’ skin cannot always cover more disturbing truths that have to be confronted in today’s world. The awkward reality is that we cannot make everything boring and safe. Isn’t one of the reasons that we react with scorn to the airbrushed models on the front of Elle and Cosmopolitan that we think it is better to have people represented as they are?

Perhaps you would prefer to support the GCSE student who wants so desperately to see David Beckham’s statue up on the plinth. Whatever you think, public art is still a hot topic of debate and it will doubtless carry on saving English teachers as they plan their lessons while stepping out of the shower on a Monday morning.

Eleanor Margesson

© Evangelicals Now - October 2005
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