A new 12ft marble sculpture called "Alison Lapper Pregnant" has been unveiled on Trafalgar Square's fourth plinth. It depicts a naked, pregnant woman with no arms and is already causing controversy.

On the one hand the Disability Rights Commission have called it "powerful and arresting" whilst art critics have dismissed it as ugly. In his own defence the artist behind the statue, Marc Quinn, has called it a "modern tribute to femininity, disability and motherhood" and says he sculpted it because disabled people were under-represented in art .

One of the statue's fiercest critics has been Robert Simon, editor of the British Art Journal: "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."

The chief executive of the Disability Rights Commission, Bob Niven, has said the statue would raise public debate on disability.

"Alison Lapper Pregnant" will be displayed until April 2007 when it will be replaced by Thomas Schutte's Hotel for the Birds.

To view a picture of the controversial statue, click here.

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