Fourth Plinth Commission Shortlist
Two artists will be selected from a proposed shortlist of five that had been kept top secret until announced.
Images are from the Reception fun for the 4th plinth contenders on 23rd Feb at the National gallery
The work in the photo is by the legendary Mexican Artist Damian Ortega
I didn’t know he was in it. As it was top secret
Damian is exhibiting at the White Cube in October.
There’s something potentially transcendent about the piece. Baroque. Going from the ground reaching out to the sky like an extended Jacobs Ladder.
Ortega said it’ll cheer people up… as comiserate about who difficult it is to park in central London.
Most of his work is about human scale assemblage. Things that a person could build with their own hands. He’s quite opposed to the monumental.
There’s is a kind of Oscars Campaigning process that go on (have to confess…I was putting words in her mouth!)
This is kinda interesting. A bit of ancient and modern. A bit of the kind of monuments that are getting blown up in Syria right now… but it’s a bit disco… (the decoration is done with some kind of wrappers giving a really pop-y effect.
The elements don’t connect in the right way. I’m sure gravitas and frivolity can co-exist in the same piece, but it doesn’t have a complexity or subtlety that services this with a decent amount of depth
I didn’t like the other sculptures – this one’s quite kitsch – the only speacial thing going on is that it’s got a drone with a camera, that will hover around trafalgar square. It’s a bit like let’s just tact on a bit of technology… Drones are in… let’s tact that on!
If it wins I’m tempted to fly my own drone around trafalgar square in direct competion
Mark Hudson the Telegraph critic was saying to me the tech thing might win it… (he didn’t like it… but thought that would be the way things would go… as judges get seduced by what they don’t understand.
I think my own drone program would be better! People could volunteer. An artist Sophie Calle once followed people around Paris making a photographic project. She later had a private detective follow her around taking photos of where she went.
Annenberg Court, National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, London, WC2N 5DN