Problems on a Plinth : The Case of Trafalgar Square

Jackie Wullschlager (Jan 12.13)
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f046f266-bfe0-11dc-8052-0000779fd2ac.html
writes perceptively about the six candidates for a piece on the Fourth Plinth to follow the current non-descript occupant, some 18 months hence. Yet her article is not convincing. A general point should be made before we come to assess the six competitors (who have been chosen by a committee within the ambit of the Greater London Authority; they have put forward in January, their idea of how they would replace the current structure on the Plinth). The general point is that the square is essentially a construct, of public space, vistas, and iconic statues, rooted in the 19th century; as such the plinth ‘needs’ to be occupied by someone or something which will meaningfully stand for the way in which that century ended, and turned towards the twentieth.
Overall, it is shocking that two out of six entrants are considered by the Financial Times' Art critic to be “embarrassingly slight” and “conceptually feeble” – judgements with which I agree. This sounds like a criticism not just of the artists bu also of the committee which devised the short list.
Yinka Shonibare has proposed a “replica” (albeit with batik sails) of Nelson’s Victory, in a giant glass bottle. This indeed has ‘charm and humour’ but raises at least three questions which are not answered. One concerns the properties of materials – can a glass bottle be made of that size? Will it have to be welded or b lon? Will it have to be in plastic? Has Shonibare convinced his judges that he knows the materials can be wrought to deliver his proposal? Secondly, I doubt that the batik sails are an effective "symbol of African identity and independence" – such material originates in Netherlands-controlled East Indies and could be said to represent the colonial trade, however much it is certainly well liked and imaginatively used in West Africa. Thirdly, Shonibare’s argument is weak, that the boat reflects “the story of multiculturalism” – it represents a victory for insular Britain, even if it is later decked out in some semblance of rejoicing in colourful artefacts. Though Wullschlager passes Shonibare by, I would favour his piece from among the six options.
Deller’s stark trashed car may be genuinely shocking – but more in the sense of representing an unconvincing state of the arts today than in saying anything helpful about Trafalgar Square. Though the Square is indeed a site for current anti-war demonstrations these have little connection with the place’s particular history.
Antony Gormley’s idea of an empty plinth inspires Wullschlager to a densely misty passage which might well (though I am not the one to send it there) deserve a place in Pseud’s Corner. She should have mentioned that when a giant wooden chair was put up in Hampstead Heath it became an exalted seat for young copulators, and I suspect that would be copied on the Plinth – unless there was ‘24/7’ policing – not what one wants for a memorable piece of ‘public art’.
Wullschlager therefore chooses Anish Kapoor’s coloured mirrors. More purple prose follows (“concept is .. privileged over individual vision … asserts art’s formal qualities and its capacity, as eternal as the sky, for transcendence’). Maybe this is true, whatever it means, but it has little convincingly to do with the essentials of Trafalgar Square.
I therefore continue to support my notion that a standing figure should be commissioned, of Mary Kingsley, the end-of-the-century explorer in space and in ideas, who had a strong impact on how the western world thought about and acted upon the societies which had been imperialised, and who soon died as a martyr in South Africa.