IT’S NOT too late to put your name forward for a chance to stand on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square. As Antony Gormley’s ‘One and Other’ project started last Monday and continues every hour, 24 hours for a hundred days until October 14. The website is still open.
As I write this, the live webcam is showing the change over from a rather boring man in a baggy T-shirt with a flip chart, to someone in a gorilla suit taking a bunch of bananas out of blue holdall and stoking up his bubble machine. The party of primary school kids beneath is loving it.
The chap who was standing dejectedly in the drizzle two nights ago with a soggy Welsh flag wasn’t quite so lucky. The webcam picks up the chatter from the crowd and on the 11pm shift he must have got the turn out from the pub slot. A number of jeering youths at the base were asking him where his sheep was to shag. And why didn’t he ‘do’ something, anything… He just smiled benignly and looked vaguely bemused as though he had accidentally found himself 25ft up, surrounded by hounds braying for his blood.
Beneath someone muttered, “Tells you all you need to know about Wales… bloody boring”, which sort of negates some of the cant that has been bandied about over how the plinth will unite the country in pedestal power.
That said, getting on the plinth is not for the faint-hearted, it’s taller than you’d expect and once up there is no way down. An hour must seem a long time. The gorilla is only fifteen minutes into his allotted slot and he has already run out of bananas and used the skins to write the word “HELP”: not sure if this is an environmental rally cry or his zip has got stuck.
I have put my name down to participate and have a one in ten chance of becoming a plinthette. I suppose it has the allure of finally being able to clamber on an ancient monument. It did cross my mind that once this taboo had been broken all over London, it might be difficult to stop people climbing any old column they fancied.
The information site tells me that the gorilla is called Gazzo and he’s from the South East, and describes himself as ‘An art sole’, ah… a subtle gorilla. Actually, he’s becoming a rather troublesome ape and has started throwing bananas at the crowd beneath. Not sure if this contravenes the Westminster by-laws that have to be signed before they let you participate. Obviously, there have to be rules. Can’t have public indecency or incitement to harassment or, one would have thought, litigation from having a banana fall on someone from a great height.
And if my time comes, what on earth would one do on a plinth? Maybe to match the gorilla, a pink catsuit, then I could be ‘the return of the plinth panther’, but that would be just too silly…
