Gormley’s Plinth: Nudity, Anyone?
Ever since artist Antony Gormley (pictured) was commissioned to winch people up on a plinth (also pictured) in the middle of London’s Trafalgar Square to do whatever they wished, doom-mongers have predicted the “living artwork” would become a soapbox for extremists, nudists, and Britain’s most depraved exhibitionists. But for the sculptor, there is only one worse outcome than this: for none of the above to happen.
According to the Independent, his Fourth Plinth commission will be installed from July 6 and Gormley said yesterday that he would be disappointed if everyone who was chosen to be winched atop the plinth as part of One and Other behaved sensibly.
At the very least, he pleaded, there should be a bit of nudity, interspersed with the odd arrest, perhaps. Oh, and he would be applying to climb up there too, he said, if only for the view.
“Unless there is a degree of contention up there, it will have no teeth. The project will be limp… I would be very upset if somebody didn’t take their clothes off… I imagine there may be occasion for arrest. We will have to deal with that when it happens.”
The nation came closer to finding out who would be drawn to Gormley’s theatre of the soapbox when internet registration began yesterday. By 3pm, 4,700 people had signed up.
