Fourth Plinth: there’s a new kid on the block
There was a flurry of activity in sunny Trafalgar Square this morning as Elmgreen & Dragset’s new sculpture ’Powerless Structures, Fig. 101′ was unveiled by Joanna Lumley. We chatted to the artists about the giant golden boy on the rocking horse and they told us: ‘Life isn’t only about victory or defeat. It can be perfectly fantastic without winning the X-Factor. At this boy’s age, there is no fear. We want people to be less fearful of the future. When we grew up, we thought everything in the future would be faster, bigger and better. If we only speak of wars, the next generation is going to be massively depressed. Our fear is our own worst enemy and we want this to be a positive message for Londoners’. Gleaming in the sun this morning with everyone smiling up at it, suddenly life did seem a little brighter. Sonya Barber
For info, see london.gov.uk/fourthplinth.
[...] We’ll get a pretty good idea at the Foundling Museum this weekend (Mar 31-April 1) as artist Yinka Shonibare hosts the ‘Back to Front Weekend’. He is inviting children and young people from across London will take over and run the museum, transforming it into a topsy turvy 18th Century fair with free outdoor entertainment all day. Meanwhile indoors, teachers will be enacting lessons based on those taught to the original foundling children such as singing, needlework, catechism and writing. ’The “Back to Front Weekend” will present a shift in power relations between those who have traditionally used the institution and those who have run the institution,’ says Yinka, a British-Nigerian artist whose previous work includes ‘Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle’ as seen on Trafalgar Square’s Fourth Plinth. [...]