The Fourth Plinth

"It is important to say that simply standing for an hour is a worthy thing to do..."
(Antony Gormley, Today, Radio 4, 26 February 2009)

The problem here is that Antony Gormley does not merely want to say it; from July he wants 2400 people to spend 100 days trying to demonstrate it to the public on Trafalgar Square's Fourth Plinth. Sounds like a rubbish world record attempt but it is actually art, and Antony Gormley - like all rubbish world record holders - considers himself an artist. But can the worthiness of simply standing for an hour be successfully demonstrated?

Perhaps outside a well-known High Street fashion outlet on Boxing Day morning, just before the "SALE" begins, standing (in a queue) could be shown to be if not worthy then at least worthwhile. Quid pro quo. But what will the 2400 volunteers be offered for giving up their time? Nothing but an opportunity to put themselves on display before the London 'masses' that clearly spend all their time admiring the Fourth Plinth. What a senseless waste (especially for the poor individual who has to stand there between 4am and 5am on the 92nd day).

But wait! There is more to be got from this so-crazy-it-just-won't-work enterprise:

"Maybe we'll discover what we really care about, what our hopes and fears are for now and for the future"
(Antony Gormley, BBC World Service, 25 February 2009)

Hmmm. More likely we'll discover what we really just don't care about...another 'clever' art installation. (Even the title - One & Other - is 'clever', ie. a consumptive pun.) And how will we discover anything other than a few dance moves from the few exhibitionists who volunteer (myself included) and the unimaginative contents of Mr Gormley's surely burnt-out mind? The 2400 volunteers are hardly going to be allowed to thrash out a few ideas of their own. For one thing, they won't be together, in the same place at the same time. For another, they will be selected so as to be a 'representative' sample of all walks of life. Got an idea of what we should really care about? About hopes and fears for the future? Great! Oh, you're an unemployed construction worker? Sorry, friend. Got enough of those already. Next please!

If you really want society to discover something about itself, then the artificial constraints of the Fourth Plinth are simply not going to help. Assuming that plenty of people do have something interesting to say (and if they don't, why bother?), then the build up to the 'unveiling' will necessarily consist of an X Factor-style panel consisting of Boris Johnson, Trevor Phillips and Gormley himself turning people away on the basis of their 'walk of life'. At no point will those ideas be exposed to peer judgement. And at no point will a public debate about hopes and fears ensue.

I say it's time to turn off the waste of money that is the Fourth Plinth. Let's just stick a 50-foot statue of Nelson bloody Mandela there and be done with it once and for all.