The sun is shining for a change and the sky is a robins egg blue. What a glorious day for a launch of the new sculpture on the Fourth Plinth. Arrive to see the Elgreen and Dragset contribution slightly apprehensive as I like their work and was not too sure of the Marquette that had been shown for the competition.
Boris Johnson is nowhere to be seen (small blessings) and in his place, I am told, is Joanna. I wonder Joanna who? To my delight it is Joanna Lumley, the only person who apparently you should know by simply their first name. She has the job of removing the rather ominous looking hangman’s noose that will allow the draperies to come away to reveal to duos handicraft. Later she poses happily in front of a phalanx of press photographers.
Elmgreen and Dragset have a lightness of touch that I admire. And this work Powerless Structures is no different in that respect. A young boy sits astride a rocking horse, glinting in the sunshine. The work initiates a thought provoking conversation with the traditional man on horse monument at the other end of Trafalgar Square. Elmgreen and Dragset pinpoints the moment we live in. No heroic acts here just hedonism and fun. The horse does not pretend to be gold – it is gilt. It seems to imply all that glitters is not gold. It has a surface though and the sculpture particularly succeeds in the detailing of the horses mane and suspenders.
Elmgreen and Dragset have a lightness of touch that I admire. And this work Powerless Structures is no different in that respect. A young boy sits astride a rocking horse, glinting in the sunshine. The work initiates a thought provoking conversation with the traditional man on horse monument at the other end of Trafalgar Square. Elmgreen and Dragset pinpoints the moment we live in. No heroic acts here just hedonism and fun. The horse does not pretend to be gold – it is gilt. It seems to imply all that glitters is not gold. It has a surface though and the sculpture particularly succeeds in the detailing of the horses mane and suspenders.
In the past I have enjoyed Elmgreen and Dragsets work in mixed shows. I remember with particular pleasure a work commissioned for the Trusardi Foundation that I saw in a mixed show in Florence. The piece, Massimiliano Gioni told me was a bureaucratic nightmare when it was installed initially in the uber conservative Milano. The foundation had all the necessary permissions and the mayor’s approval before they installed in the middle of the night so that the work Short Cut, (2003)
would appear to have appeared in the fashionable Galleria Vittorio Emanuele as if by magic. Much to their surprise the car soon had a 700 euro ticket for illegal parking (strange in a pedestrian precinct).
Back to Trafalgar Square though, and the mayor has obviously done his work because there are no meter men in sight. I like the way the horse is cantilevered seemingly effortlessly over the edge of the plinth. It is a work in the round and demands to be circumvented. Children will love it and their parents will too. It is the perfect choice for the Olympics and the visitors who will pour into the city. We live in rocky times and we need to ride through the stormy and sunny times, never forgetting to have a bit of joy along the way.
