Present Tense

• Possible sculptures: Bertie Ahern on a high horse; a visual representation of Michael Flatley’s ego…

  November 9, 2007 @ 5:01 pm | by Shane

  

  Trafalgar Square’s fourth plinth has a new sculpture. Model for a Hotel 2007 by German artist Thomas Schutte. What’s it all about Thomas? “I don’t know” he says. At least he has a nice explanation for its creation:

  It came about while I was drawing. It has hips, a waist, a torso. It was like a big man. So I thought, why not add a lobby?

  Why not, indeed.

  The fourth plinth was left empty because a cash row meant a planned statue never got put there. It turned out to be a wonderful accident, and since 1999 has housed temporary sculptures, including one of Alison Lapper, Rachel Whiteread’s Monument and (briefly) Jonny Wilkinson during the Rugby World Cup.

  It is such a simple, refreshing idea: a bare plinth on which sculptures by major artists can come and go. Why not one for Dublin (or Cork, Limerick, wherever), where artists can have a go at doing it justice, the public can decide whether they like it or not, and regardless of the outcome it’ll be gone after a while anyway to be replaced by another talking point. O’Connell St would be as good a place as any for it.

  It would be a perfect way for the public to engage with art: it would everyone something to talk about; cause some arguments; give us a chance to praise/complain about art; and (of course) give us all a chance to come up with new funny nicknames on a more regular basis.

  There have been duds on the Fourth Plinth, but it has become a welcome and malleable part of the London landscape. Why not a “fourth plinth” here?

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• The Liffey sculpture’s Mini-Me

  September 6, 2007 @ 8:55 am | by Shane

  Dan Sullivan has spotted that Antony Gormley’s planned Liffey sculpture already has a brother in the University of Limerick. He informs us that:

  This is the exact same figure that Gormley did for UL except he filled this one in … He is known as the rusty man

  Apparently, he’s also known as Brown Thomas. It’s officially called Together and Apart, was installed in UL in 2001 and is a good 46-metres shorter than the one Dubliners will get.

  Update 18:00: Green Ink has posted a vision of how what the sculpture could be.

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• This week’s big festival…

  August 29, 2007 @ 5:01 pm | by Shane

  

  …is the Burning Man in the Nevada desert. (What else could it be?)

  No “posh washes”. No umbrella stalls. No sponsored stages. No clothes.

  Instead, there is a staggering level of imagination, a need for self-sufficiency (in water and food), and a “no spectators, only participants” ethic which encourages some incredible art. I was there in 1999, and it was the most mind-altering/expanding/boggling/melting festival I’ve been at. After 21 years, it faces annual accusations that it’s sold out, but this seems to be only from the perspective of the more rarified levels of Californian hippidom.

  Eight days long, it culminates in the burning of a 40ft sculpture of “the Man” (you may spot the subtle symbolism in that).

  Except that an “attention whore” arsonist has set it on fire four days early. Can’t imagine what he’d do if he saw Antony Gormley’s sculpture.

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• Antony Gormley’s sculpture

  August 23, 2007 @ 9:30 am | by Shane

  Antony Gormley has released an image of his proposed 48-metre high Dublin Docklands sculpture. He tells The Irish Times that it will be “like a charcoal drawing against the sky, changing as your position changes in relation to it. Up close you will see through it, in the distance it will cohere into a bodily image.”

  It’ll be two-thirds the height of Liberty Hall, so Dubliners had better like it…

  

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