So farewell then Alison Lapper. Your reign on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, annoying my Dad is to end. But you have been a tremendous presence there, reminding us of the power of statuary and the indomitable spirit of motherhood. But what, we wonder, has she given birth too? I had (wrongly it seems) believed that the Fourth Plinth project had faltered. After the initial rush, the square had seemed to settle for Alison. She seemed to fit too, with the newly pedestrianised venue (pedestrian in all senses of the word – there are some great events but they always seem to lack that magical ooomph*).
Anyway, the new piece of work for the fourth plinth has been announced, and I’m going to get all Daily Mail on your arse. Not because I don’t like it, I won’t know that until I see it in situ. But because from this picture there is an obvious joke to be made, and dammit if I’m not going to make it first. Thomas Schutte’s “Model for a Hotel 2007” kinda resembles the kind of perspexey constructions that the Doozers on Fraggle Rock used to make. It is an admirably clear piece or draftsmanship in action, which could look astonishing in daylight as well as if lit well, but I do kind of see little hard hatted green men grumbling under their moustaches at its construction. I also fear that a free spirited red haired Fraggle may just come in and eat it at some stage. But well done the Fourth Plinth for reminding us to “Dance Our Cares Away…”
*This is almost certainly due to them being free events.