Video: Living statues in Trafalgar Square
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
British sculptor Antony Gormley offers the public 60 minutes of fame by transforming people into living statues in the One & Other art project. The artist asks British residents to take a seat on an empty fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square in London, where statues of kings and generals usually rise. The participants become images of themselves.
Every hour, 24 hours a day, for 100 days without interruption, 2,400 different people will stand on the fourth plinth, which was built with three others at the northwest corner of the square in 1841. Initially, it was planned to erect an equestrian statue there, but for financial reasons, the pedestal remained empty, on which from time to time various temporary sculptures and installations appear.
Anyone who lives or is just passing through in the UK over 16 years old can take part in the project "One and the Other". The art experiment started on July 6 and will run until October 14, 2009. The rules are very simple: a person must be himself on a pedestal for a whole hour and can do whatever he wants within the framework of the law and decency. You can take everything you can bring upstairs with you. Living statues can express their own ideas, drawing and drawing public attention to certain issues, or just spend an hour doing nothing. Participants include dancers, singers, artists and human rights activists. This experiment is a portrait of the current United Kingdom society.
“The idea is very simple. A person placed on a pedestal becomes a metaphor, a symbol. In the context of Trafalgar Square, with its military and historical statues that honor the memory of famous personalities, this elevation of everyday life to the level of monumental art allows us to reflect the diversity, vulnerability and identity of the individual in modern society. People come together to do something extraordinary and unpredictable. It can be tragic, but also fun,”says sculptor Anthony Gormley.
For the past 25 years, Antony Gormley has been resurrecting the human image in sculpture through radical exploration and the use of his own body as a subject, tool and material. Anthony Gormley's work is on display in solo shows throughout the UK, at Whitechapel, Tate and Hayward Galleries, and at the British Museum. His work can also be seen at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Art in Los Angeles, the Louisiana Museum, the Corcoran Art Gallery in Washington, the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin, as well as in museums in Stockholm and Germany.
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