Rachel Whiteread's Plinth Thing

The previous thing was *completely* dreadful and sat there, huge and hideous like some warning about what would happen if we let people populate our public plinths willy-nilly, without the consultation of Those With Taste. (for those who haven't seen it, it involved a large human head apparently asleep on a book, with a leafless tree growing on and around them both).

The Mark Wallinger which was the first of the three was the best so far, for me: a life-sized (on the plinth gave the impression of quarter-sized) human figure, hands bound, in a loincloth (Jesus?) standing near the edge of the plinth, back turned to the National Gallery. Oddly quiet (especially compared to the clattery head-book- tree thing) and very great.

What gets me is, the Wallinger statue (which was great) aroused a fair bit of controversy, mostly based on its out-of-place scale and the Jesus thing - it is meant to be Jesus I think. And then Whiteread's piece has got people muttering and has been a source of many a dismissive vox pop. But the book-head-tree monster got almost no comment, let alone the kind of derision the other two have. Now the British people as lovers of modern public art I can accept is a long shot, but I wasn't so sure they were into monumentalist fantasy kitsch either. Ah well.

As a child I was told Lord Hill (on top of the Column in Shrewsbury, out Belvedere way: column design = outrageous miniature "hommage" to Nelson's) had been put there for net going to bed at the time he was told.

News journalists enjoy thinking about orcs because they all look like orcs.

We'll find out about the orc thesis before too long, alas.

The plinth looks lovely in the hazy sunlight. I think they should keep going though and build Lego tower of plinths up to the stars...

My perfect day on my own in London would involve plotting a mazy path from caff to bus to gallery to pub to record shop to gallery to caff to record shop to pub and so on.

I don't know why people who are prepared to invest time and money in chasing obscure pop music don't spend more time looking around at the art which London has to offer... I find a similar ratio of good / bad / indifferent, and a really good show is every bit as good as a good gig, and less sweaty, to boot.

Oh, I would have to cross the river somewhere along the line too - for a gaze. Love that river.

Must make an effort to do better in the future, especially now I'm unemployed and don't have to fight the hoards of tourists at the weekends.

And BTW, how the heck do you GET to the New Tate? They built that new bridge, but you're not allowed to use it. What's up with that?

The way you get to the new Tate, Kate, is by using the old bridge, i.e. Blackfriars.

The Bill Viola thing really is fab. And loud!

Erm... back to art. My favourite museum is the Sainsburys wing of the National Gallery, not just because it has late medieval and early Rennaissance art (some of my favourite periods) but because it has A PUB built right into it. So you can get pissed and then go slither about the walls of the national gallery, giggling at all the weird UFO things in the skies of those medieval icons.

(ie the HUUUUUGE space in the tate modern)

unfortunately, my experience was considerably lessened by the two idiots whose idea of fun is going to art galleries in order to sing along as loud as possible with their ipods. oh um.

The fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square is being kept free for a statue of the Queen riding a horse which will be commissioned after she dies, say senior officials.

The plan sheds new light on why the plinth has never had a full-time occupant and has been used recently to showcase the work of modern artists. It also explains why the Mayor of London, who has been informed of the plan, recently performed a mysterious U-turn on proposals for a permanent statue to be placed on the monument, blaming "complex planning issues".

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art-and-architecture/news/fourth-plinth-is-reserved-for-the-queen-887113.html

sorry, what?

that's so boring

it's so apt. i'd rather a sculpture of the queen on horseback than some rachel whiteread bollocks. what a cunt she is.

I can't stand the parade of statues of dead white european male warmongers, from Parliament Square all the way down Whitehall to Trafalgar Square. Yeah yeah lol liberal guilt complex.

it's so apt. i'd rather a sculpture of the queen on horseback than some rachel whiteread bollocks. what a cunt she is.

-- jed_, Thursday, August 7, 2008 11:41 AM (4 minutes ago)

*cough*

WHAT!

Seriously WHAT!

at what?

basically that whole sentence!

i mean statement

srsly dude

Her plinth was so beautiful. The one I'd have left up anyway.

So ghostly, such a feeling for material. So simple.

why wouldn't there be a statue of the queen in trafalgar square after she died? of course there will be!

as for whiteread, i've loathed the woman ever since i watched a documentary about the construction of he holocaust memorial in the judenplatz in vienna where she clearly too the various trials involved in fighting local resistance to the idea of constructing the memorial as a personal affront to her rather than seeing it for what it actually was: there being a much more pertinent object of resistance to the sculpture than whiteread herself, but she totally lost all perspective about that.

also, i have to say i find the work predictable. when i was at architecture school people used to come up with projects all the time that were almost exactly like what she ended up doing in vienna. it's just one of those pretty obvious ideas, no?

too = took.

okay "loathed" is taking it too far but i think she's awful.

Actually, I'm kinda with you on the Holocaust Memorial. She abandons the simplicity that works so well for her, while that grey slab of concrete is so starkly empathetic it loses something by being loaded with all this portentous backwards book nonsense.

I admit I don't really know anything about why there should be a statue of the queen on the fourth plinth, but it is pretty cool to have a plinth to the present, something that can change.

Still, I get very defensive about Rachel because her parquet floor drawings are some of my favourite things in this universe.

My name is plinth / and I am funky

on a less silly note, I really liked Whiteread's contribution to Psycho Buildings.

Is Rachel Whiteread the one that only has one tit?

why wouldn't there be a statue of the queen in trafalgar square after she died? of course there will be!

I was going to say because we don't tend to put up statues of our monarchs any more, but I am surprised to see there is a statue of George VI and that I must have walked past it on many occasions. Having said that the fourth plinth has been empty since 1841 and so we could have had a few monarchs on it by now.

Oh I was so excited when I realised that was in that exhibition cause I had read a big thing with her in ArtWorld I think where she was making them, I wasn't so sure because they're really quite different from her best work, but they were amazing to see.

Is Rachel Whiteread the one that only has one tit?

-- The stickman from the hilarious "xkcd" comics, Thursday, August 7, 2008 12:18 PM (1 minute ago)

What does this even mean?

It means that Dom is scrapping the zing barrel.

I'd like to see the statue of the Queen look like this:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/graphics/slideshows/benson/b6.jpg

btw - has a winner been decided for this?

http://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/dailynews/2008/05/images_unveiled_for_ebbsfleet_landmark.html

whiteread's definitely isn't the worst proposal here but:

"Rachel Whiteread's proposal is for a craggy 'recycled mountain' on top which will sit a life-size cast interior of a house"

...again?

Wallinger's is clearly the best of these but i wonder if it can be realised for £2m. i seriously doubt it.

it's about NEGATIVE SPACE

THE SPACE BETWEEN SPACES

THE UNFOLDING OF A VISION

wallinger's is pretty great

you don't say. is it about silence as well? the difficulty of communication in the modren society?

xp

all horrible, the horse at least has potential for vandalism

it's a gigantic fking horse!

it's about NEGATIVE SPACE

THE SPACE BETWEEN SPACES

THE UNFOLDING OF A VISION

-- Tracer Hand, Thursday, August 7, 2008 12:30 PM (3 minutes ago)

Like, what is this, this adds nothing, you could do this with anything.

her psycho buildings thing was pretty good, yeah. but her tate modern installation was really really weak.

Never saw it so can't say anything.

but it doesn't look so great in photos.

Dude, it's about making the transient tangible. It explodes traditional concepts of spatiality without abandoning them. BLAH BLAH BLAH

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I saw it and liked it actually. Definetely better irl as it were.

Would have been even better if it been made with sugar.

BLAH BLAH BLAH

this seems to be about as much as you're capable of saying then.

the plinth modern art thing was a good idea except the ones that end up going on them are shit.

upside down plinth was shit, model of a hotel is shit.

bring back david beckham.

plinth needs marble rendering of ken c

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v134/tracerhand/Wellfuckyourshit.jpg

I liked Wallinger's plinth.

all of those ebbsfleet ones are shit too. i mean, if you just build a nice clocktower on there it'll be nicer than any of those nonsense

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And Gormley's plinth could be interesting.

Maybe we could put Gormley himself up there.

what actually motivates you to talk?

I go back and forth on Gormley, I'll be interested to see what he does?

plinth needs marble rendering of ken c

well this was my idea a while ago

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v356/kenjuggle3/kencplinth.jpg

I like it.
I especially like the guy at the bottom of the plinth crying at the sheer beauty he beholds.

her psycho buildings thing was pretty good, yeah

yeah it was! whiteread seems to veer randomly between really emotionally intuitive work and empty crap about nothing.

think a statue of the queen would be disappointing and regressive, a bit...what year is this again? why does this country give a shit about the royal family beyond the level of 'minor celebs falling out of boujis'? though i'd find it hard to get particularly angry if it did happen.

i like the idea of revolving artworks up there.

thought do ho suh's bisected american apartments w/the korean house crashing into the side was the best psycho building though

i'm all for not putting a statue of the queen up on the plinth except i can't think of anything in particular to go on there that's any better.

i'm going through every person i can think of just now and though "do i want a statue of this person on trafalgar square more than the queen" and each one of them returned no.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/feb/10/ebbsfleet-landmark-mark-wallinger-horse

Difficult to say which of the shortlisted entries was worst. A fucking giant horse though. Why not, eh.

i loved his proposal but there's no way this can be built for anything close to £2m. all that huge structure sitting on 4 slim points roughly 3-4m square? the ability for all that bulk to withstand high winds? it's not impossible but it will have to be an act of engineering genius and it will cost £££.

Maybe they could find some way to suspend it so I could make my 'hung like a horse' joke.