Thursday, October 24, 2013

Cock-a-Doodle-Twoooo

  With weathercocks on my mind from my last post, I thought I would share another rooster photo, this big blue guy.
This is  Cock  by Danish artist Katharina Fritsch and it occupies the interesting Fourth Plinth in London's Trafalgar Square.  He is huge, and his blue color is pretty, well, eye-catching!

   The Fourth Plinth was built at the same time as the other three, but money ran out before the planned statue could be commissioned and the Fourth Plinth sat empty for 150 years.  Finally in 2005 the first sculpture was commissioned and placed.  It depicted an artist, Alison Lapper, who was born with no arms and only short legs.  Since then there have been five more works placed on the Fourth Plinth.

When I was there in March, I saw this bronze sculpture of a boy on a rocking horse.  All the other statues in the square have historical significance, with ties to war.  I think it's interesting that the Fourth Plinth sculptures seem to have peaceful and sort of everyday human themes.  In 2009, ordinary people were invited to pose for an hour on the plinth holding anything they could carry up there themselves.  They could be viewed live on the Internet.
 
   I'm not sure what is planned next, or when.  But I have a suggestion.  Most permanent scultures in Trafalgar Square represent men, males (even the lions!) and their achievements.  I think it's the ladies' turn!
 
Thanks for reading!  I'd love it if you could leave a comment!

5 comments:

  1. Glad you saw it when you were there. Rumour has it they are saving the plinth for a memorial to the Queen whenever that might be, hence the temporary nature of the exhibits. Not sure whether that is true or not.

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  2. Indeed, Cynthia! the color of cock looking pretty and cool..
    Such beautiful captures !

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  3. The fourth plinth idea is a great one for displaying different sculpturs but my favorite was the one from 2009, nearly did it myself

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