"Most public sculpture, especially in the Trafalgar Square and Whitehall areas is triumphant male statuary."

For balance: "Alison Lapper Pregnant." The 13-ton marble statue was unveiled today. Comments? Is the artist striking a blow for the rights of women and the disabled or is he exploiting women and the disabled for his own advantage? Does the intent to strike a blow for the rights of women and the disabled make it better art, worse art, or exactly the same level of art it would be if it were offered up purely for its form? And in a purely formal sense, is it good art?

MORE: I just heard a BBC News report on the sculpture, which included Robert Simon, editor of the British Art Journal, disparaging what he called "the thing":

I think it is horrible. Not because of the subject matter I hasten to add. [I have a] lot of time for Alison Lapper. I think she is very brave, very wonderful but it is just a rather repellent artefact - very shiny, slimy surface, machine-made, much too big...

He also noted — and I agree — that the head is especially badly done.

YET MORE: Who Alison Lapper is.