Trafalgar Square Art "Exhibit": Wish I Could See This!

[3113]

I know, I know. Someone's going to grouse "that's not what I call art--" Put a sock in it! I LOVE this idea. I don't really care if it's "Art" or not. It think its fascinating. And fun.

In most countries, stranding someone on a narrow platform 30 feet off the ground, exposed to the elements, probably would constitute a form of torture. But in Britain, it's art. And thousands of people are vying for a chance to be part of it. Their goal: an hour of fleeting glory atop a patch of prime real estate, an empty pedestal in London's Trafalgar Square, alongside such illustrious neighbors as Adm. Horatio Nelson on his famous column, King George IV on horseback and the inevitable clumps of tourists below.

Since the art project kicked off last month, hundreds of lucky winners have had their 60 minutes in the sun -- or, this being England, the wind and rain -- during which they are free to do whatever they want on top of the plinth, as long as it's legal. One man became Britain's mood ring, asking people to call his cellphone to tell him how they were feeling at the moment, which he then transcribed onto colored poster board. An 84-year-old woman flashed semaphores, braving the damp at 3 a.m. to telegraph messages such as, "It was my birthday last Thursday." A young woman held a sign proclaiming "Introverts are people too," then sat down, barefoot and silent, to read a book.

...The project, titled "One & Other," is the brainchild of Antony Gormley, one of Britain's best-known artists. By putting ordinary, living people on the plinth, Gormley wants to push the bounds of sculpture and to offer a postmodern counterpoint to the square's statues of long-dead heroes of empire, the sort of martial he-men for whom "Pomp and Circumstance" could've been a personal theme song....By the time the project wraps up Oct. 14, there will have been 2,400 "plinthers," as the participants have been dubbed, each allotted an hour in the spotlight at any time of day or night. They are hoisted by cherry-picker onto the pedestal, which is surrounded by netting to prevent a tumble onto the bone-breaking concrete below.

More than 30,000 people have applied for a slot; winners are chosen by computer, which selects only on the basis of geographical diversity. It makes no judgment about what the person plans to do up there...There's the predictable: people who use their hour to promote worthy causes, often to do with animals (again, this being England); buskers strumming their guitars or scratching out tunes on their violins; disgruntled activists railing against government policies.

But the wonderful and wacky have turned up, too: a swing-dance teacher who got the whole square sashaying; a P.E. teacher dressed as Buzz Lightyear who gave an aerobics lesson while the crowds below chanted, "You are art! You are art!"; a person decked out as a giant CCTV camera; and the "Balloonatic," sheathed in a skin-tight red bodysuit, with a giant red balloon that, a tad disturbingly, he climbed into and out of as part of his act.

Gormley drops in on the square as often as he can to keep an eye on the project, which has private and public sponsors, including the London municipal government. "I'm just amazed," he said. "There was a moment where bubble machines were the main thing. Now I think we've evolved a bit. . . . I get the same level of despair and amusement and inspiration from this sort of parade of human variety as anyone else."

Full story here. So. If you got picked to be on the pedestal, what would you do? Me, myself, I'd do nothing but cling to the platform. Alas, I've a fear of heights.