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Chicken, giant cake and pipe organ in battle of Trafalgar Square fourth plinth
Louise Jury, Chief Arts Correspondent19 Aug 2010
The public gave us Godzilla, naked dancers and bagel man sculptures during their 100 days on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square.
Today artists revealed their own candidates — from a giant brick Battenberg cake to a pipe organ “played” by punching buttons on a cash machine.
Six shortlisted entries are competing to follow Nelson's Ship In A Bottle by Yinka Shonibare when it is taken down at the end of next year. His sculpture followed Antony Gormley's One & Other project, which gave 2,400 people 60 minutes of fame and opened up the plinth to the public for the first time.
In pictures: Proposals for Trafalgar Square's fourth plinth
Brian Griffiths, 41, of Bethnal Green, who came up with the Battenberg, said his sculpture using house bricks represented “a very British brand of humour”. He said he had bought lots of the cakes to develop the plan but insisted: “I didn't eat any.”
The notion of the ATM-driven organ, where pipes are triggered when visitors press keys to take out cash, came from Puerto Rica-based artists Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla.
The other ideas include: a blue cockerel by German Katharina Fritsch; a brass boy on a rocking horse by Scandinavians Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset; a bronze horse by Hew Locke, of Brixton, and a floating map of Britain by German Mariele Neudecker.
Mr Locke, 50, said: “The fourth plinth is probably the most important single public sculpture in Europe.”
Two artists will be chosen from the list and announced by Mayor Boris Johnson early next year. Each will take its temporary turn on the plinth, with one installed in the London Olympics year of 2012.
Ekow Eshun, chairman of the Fourth Plinth Commissioning Group, said the choice would be difficult. He added: “The new proposals are world-class.”
Models of the six ideas can be seen at St Martin-in-the-Fields church crypt foyer from today until October 31.
The shortlisted six
Brian Griffiths: Battenberg
“The pink and yellow cake is a humble commemoration of the Victorian era and a link with a British past that has slowly crumbled. Increased to gigantic proportions, fashioned from a selection of traditionally made household bricks and placed on a plinth alongside other Victorian statues in Trafalgar Square, the cake becomes a wry monument to monumentality. The sculpture transforms the Battenberg as a symbol of teatimes past into a contemporary comment on commodity, commemoration and collective identity.”
Elmgreen and Dragset: Powerless Structures, Fig 101
“In this portrayal of a boy astride his rocking horse, a child has been elevated to the status of a historical hero, though there is not yet a history to commemorate. As in a Hans Christian Andersen fairytale, this enfant terrible' gently mocks the authoritarian pose often found in the tradition of equestrian sculptures. His wild gesture, mimicking the adult cavalier, is one of pure excitement — there will be no tragic consequences resulting from his imaginary conquest.”
Mariele Neudecker: It's Never Too Late And You Can't Go Back
“It's Never Too Late And You Can't Go Back is elevated above the plinth and represents a fictional mountainscape. If viewed from above it reveals the flipped and reversed shape of Britain. From below, the map is the right way around and more familiar. Its location and fabric link with features of Trafalgar Square as well as to classical sculptures and sublime landscape paintings in the National Gallery. It provokes thoughts about a monumental past and future of both landscape and city.”
Hew Locke: Sikandar
“The plinth was designed to receive an equestrian bronze: 170 years later Sikandar fulfils that original ambition. The artwork replicates the statue of Field Marshal Sir George White (1835-1912) in Portland Place and transforms it into a fetish object. The sculpture will be embellished with horse-brasses, charms, medals, sabres, ex-votos, jewels, Bactrian treasure and Hellenistic masks. It is not an anti-military critique. It is an investigation into the idea of the hero and the problematic and changing nature of heroism.”
Katharina Fritsch: Hahn/Cock
“The sculpture, a larger-than-life cockerel in ultramarine blue, communicates on different levels. The mostly grey architecture of Trafalgar Square would receive an unexpectedly strong colour accentuation, the size and colour of the animal making the whole situation surreal or simply unusual. The cockerel is also a symbol for regeneration, awakening and strength and at the same time plays with an animal motif that was popular in classic modernism. Finally, the theme refers, in an ironic way to male-defined British society.”
Allora and Calzadilla: Untitled (ATM/Organ)
“Untitled (ATM/Organ) consists of installing an automated teller machine in the fourth plinth, connected to a functioning pipe organ which will produce sound by driving pressurised air through pipes selected via the ATM machine keyboard. This project addresses a range of themes and subjects such as personal banking, global financial systems, commerce, the sacred and the profane, music-making and personal and public space in a humorous manner.”
Reader views (7)
ALSO......... If the Big blue chicken wins, is there any chance of it laying an egg?
- Richard Merrell, Wentworth Falls NSW, Australia, 22/08/2010 06:35
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Why not a PUBLIC LOO ? that should bring back a memory or TOO.....the Rocking Horse is ok but lacks some of that 'scarce' stuff.
- Richard Merrell, Wentworth Falls NSW, Australia, 22/08/2010 06:24
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Is it just me or would the cock signify more of as French element than a British, being of a striking colour makes it want to shine above the other three which defines its own ego. I personally would go for a statue of someone who had made this country great; or Jeremy Clarkson !
- graham, london, 20/08/2010 11:45
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I thought the Battenberg cake was a reference to the Royal Family's origins. A big, blue cockerel? Isn't that theh French emblem? Isn't 'Sikandar' the Turkish form of 'Alexander'?
- Sue R, London Middlesex, 19/08/2010 23:05
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Keep the one that's already there - save money!
- Rogan, Irving, 19/08/2010 19:20
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How about a modern day pastiche to medieval justice in London - Tony Blair's head on a spike, anyone?
- Arfur Towcrate, Staffycher, 19/08/2010 18:44
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All too "art school" for me. How about something that represents "the people" instaed?
"Modern Art" is not public art.
There has to be a middleground between "dead war hero" and "Rusting soup tin on a string" when it come to art for public spaces.
Really, a big blue chicken?
- Joe Gioielli, New Port Richey, FL, 19/08/2010 14:36
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