The London Mayor has decided not to use the 4th plinth in Trafalgar Square for a permanent statue of Second World War hero Sir Keith Park. The news has not gone down well at Conservativehome.com or on the Evening Standard website where many seem to think that it is some kind of snub to the war hero. This is ridiculous. There are plenty of statues and memorials to those who served in World War Two and Boris has said that there will be a Keith Park statue somewhere in London. Yet there are only a handful of high profile pieces of contemporary public art in prominent places in the capital.

I think that having a revolving piece on the fourth plinth is a fantastic idea. It ignites our imagination and gets Londoners who otherwise wouldn’t have thought about it discussing contemporary art. Many seem to have confused their dislike of modern art with a dislike of the idea of having revolving pieces displayed there. For all the complaints about Marc Quinn’s sculpture of a limbless lady (and I really liked it) it got people discussing art and culture in a way that would never happen with a permanent statue of Sir Keith.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 30th, 2008 at 5:53 pm , written by Dan Abernethy and is filed under Change. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.