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Do put Eric on a pedestal

A statue of limitation

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Saturday, 25 July 2009

I’m going to be art next week, and will be taking my place on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square, London as part of Anthony Gormleys ‘One & Other’ art project. I’m going to get an hour up on one of the most famous pedestals in the land and can do precisely what I please. Come along if you like, throw eggs or roses, insults or tambourines, cheer me or goad me to jump, or simply watch me live on line. I’ll be up on Tuesday 28th July from 10am till 11am, www.oneandother.co.uk

Such freedom, to be given the gift of being art and having to define it yourself, but a pedestal, like most small confined spaces is a prison by any other name. I’ll be making a break for it I suspect and just try and please myself for an hour. Just don’t take that the wrong way. I’ve been watching the Gormley Project on line and seeing how most folk just try being themselves and how unbearably dull that is, and that’s not a criticism of them as people, just of their lives. The dullness of some of these people is enough to make every other statue in the square leap from it’s own pedestal and hasten the resurrection of the dead. At least they are being true to themselves and although I might criticise them it’s true that a statue has never been erected in honour of a critic. It’s good that the ordinary folk get a moment to celebrate what it means to be British in 2009. “This isn’t really art at all, is it?” some local TV sublebrity asked the artist, to which Gormley replied, with a straight bat: “Why does it matter to you?”

Most of us have to accept that some times you’re the pigeon and others that you’re the statue. I get to be it literally and am going to encourage the pigeons to join me for my arty hour. I might catch a few of them and make a pie, or tie hundreds of them to chains, attach them to my nipples and then ascend up into the heaves (or at least as far as Nelson) like a human mote clasped in a sunbeam, moaning in an ecstatic way. As dear Oscar said ‘A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament.’ I cannot fail then. I have decided to be myself for the hour, to dress up and mock, to delight myself, to be pure sarcastic, exuberant silly and deadly serious. To be the cute little mass of contradictions that I am, and to enjoy it.

To stand, alone, vulnerable and way above the busy squares and streets of London, strangely on show but also apart from it all. Removed and watched. I’ve got a few surprises up my sleeve and will be being as naughty as possible and if I have a police car, ambulance or troupe of Horse Guards waiting for me when I am lifted off then I’m just going to smile as I’ll be getting exactly what I deserve.