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It's like an expensive local community project, hardly worthy of a national artist. I'm sure a local theatre company could come up with a better use than 'put some people up there and let's see what they do'.

The innovative part of the proposal is that the art establishment won't be vetting applicants, that bodes well.

it's a bit like life really (when u r brown)
people will always disagree with you
and then steal your ideas on the sly

Most I suspect will be mundane, but with 2,400 people participating something interesting must happen.
I hope there's to be webcam coverage, video highlights, photos and so on.

It still leaves the problem of what will happen to the plinth when the 100 days is up.

I think it will be great Razia as long as the creativity is naturally occuring rather than held hostage to the attention seeker.

I've been having great fun this week blogging on Evan Davis' blog while he is away - like his Today colleague he hasn't filed in over a month and I thought it would be entertaining to fill the void for a little while.

It was actually great fun and I even took the opportunity to write Evan some stand up material for the charity stand up he and his colleagues are about to embark on. I figured that Evan might use some help as colleague Libby Purves already has a very talented stand up in the family in daughter Rose.

Anyway I like to think that this creativity was naturally occuring, a bit of fun, and might add a little to the gaiety of the nation in these rather economically depressing times. I don't think you necessarily need to be on a plinth in Trafalgar Square to attempt similar but it is not for me to judge. If that is what folks want to do then why not. I'll be watching with interest.

whoops...that should have read colleague Jim McNaughtie. If any Razia bloggers want to have a look at the stand up material all they need do is click on Evan's blog and scroll down on the postings on the last blog which Evan posted. Hope it brightens the day!

Another 3 watt light bulb appears and glows dimly above Gormley's head.

"It is a hugely ambitious idea which focuses on Gormley's long-standing interest in the body as a metaphor"

Don't you mean his body as a metaphor and for what? Sad to see such an ego centric sculptor and one, not without talent, brought low and to the brink of Performance Art.

You suggest that a Noel Edmonds / Ant & Dec style TV stunt, involving members of the public standing on a plinth in central London, as a "hugely ambitious" idea. Bonkersthink! What does this comment suggest re the state of art in your country.

Anthony, the art, it isn't about you and it isn't about us. This would seem to be beyond you.

"the visual arts equivalent of The X Factor meets David Blane. "

Quite.

Is the art in the getting loads of people involved or is it from coming up with the idea and then handing it over to others to take it somewhere else?

I think Gormley is successful because he allows people to take his ideas and move them into their understandings so sculptures like Another Place offer an interactive experience but there is no offical sanction to what your experience is. I saw Field recently and just couldn't help smiling because it was so cute (not a usual art word I know). No touching involved but at the same time the imagination was allowed to roam free because there was no 'meaning' placed on the peice and no worthies telling you what you should be enjoying.

Any art that invovles the public seems to get dismissed as being naff and without meaning which possibly says more about the critic than the actually state of the art.

Do you know I've been thinking about what I would do on that plinth and it is probably this. I would make the case for Robert Burns cutting much more of an Irish figure than a Scottish one.

Back in the 18th century and pre tar macadam roads Scotland and Ireland enjoyed a coastal community. People came and went all the time for weddings, funerals and christenings. And if economic prospects looked better in Belfast than Ayr then you might just stay and vice versa.

Added to that, Cromwell - the 350th anniversary of whose death has also just been marked - also built his Citadel in Ayr as a key strategic point for the subjugation of the Irish, with the protestant plantation.

Burns got his love of song writing and collection from his mother Agnes who hailed from Mauchline. We were in the next village along called St Quivox and both branches of my family at the time had been born in Belfast and inter-married with purely Irish folk for the first generation even after they were over in Ayrshire.

Robert Crawford's rather good new biography of Burns makes lots of highly erroneous class judgements about the town and its people but he is right when he asserts that Robert Burns seems to be one removed from both the town and its people.

Ireland is full of characters like Burns and its songsmiths still straddle the world today be they Bono or that bloke who leads Snow Patrol. As for dear old Ayr well there is dear old Sydney Devine. I rest my case! Oh and that rather brilliant chap who writes those memorable and truly wonderful songs at anyoldfun.

There is even talk of the song That Other Guy, which can be heard at anyoldfun (funny that we share a call sign!) being worthy of a Grammy. Yes it really is that good. Probably one of the finest country songs ever written.

Which isn't that surprising really as this chap's grandfather wrote Harbor Lights, one fo the few songs ever to have been both number one and number two on the US Billoard charts at the same time.

Gene Autry, the singing cowboy, remarked in live performance which can be heard at iTunes that the song was 'one of the prettiest little songs ever written' and he is right. It was about the Harbor Lights of Ayr. The originator rather unfortunately got talked out of his copyright for £5 (a lot of money perhaps in the mid 1930s) but at least it now appears to be recognised in wikipedia that Kennedy did not originate the song.

The orginator never complained it had to be said. He was just glad that the song was enjoyed by music lovers everywhere. The same goes for this generation which is why there is half an hour or so of original material at anyoldfun for folks to listen to and hopefully enjoy for free. Happy listening from thatotherguy! And have a happy week-end.

If the only "meaning" to be derived from this is the "meaning" we each individually take away from it, then what's the point, of either the exercise or the sculptor? Since when did an "idea" become "art"? When the "idea" is had by an "artist"? What if it had been an MP or councillor who came up with this idea? Would it still be "art"?
This whole "conceptual art" bubble just has to burst sometime, and show people how hollow and empty it really is: there's no real talent involved at all, and I weep for the real artists with real talent out there who so often get overlooked in the scrum for the latest trend.
I hope thousands of real artists apply for a place on the plinth, and use their hour to paint, draw, sculpt, sing, write, or otherwise create something far more worthwhile than an empty, facile "idea".

This has got gormless Gormleys best one yet!

Firstly he dumps a load of scrap iron on mud flats in the Mersey estuary thereby adding to the workload of the local emergency services who have to deal with sightseers trapped by the rising tide or boats holed by hitting the things when the tide covers them.

Then he say Manchester council should be brave and not take down a structure that is so shoddily built that it's a danger to the public.

Now he's getting paid for a work of 'art' and getting others to do all the work for him!

at least it's a departure from the 'where can i put the next cast of me naked' line of thinking.

I still think we should put a huge Clanger pointing to the stars on it to celebrate the life of Oliver Postgate. Someone who touched the hearts of millions of kids and adults alike.

Something we can all relate to and not poncy or highbrow,

Putting the "artistic value" aside, giving a random sampling of the citizenry of Great Britain an opportunity to express themselves publicly might garner some wondrous surprises.
Beyond the poser, there will invariably be some original, unique, and contemporary offerings. With 24 hour video documentation, there is the very real possibility of discovering a new, important voice. Carpe Diem.

Gormley has got a lot of people thinking about conceptual art who don't normally think about art at all (Daily Mail readers, for example).

This is definitely a result.

Ernst Gombrich says "There is no such thing as art, there are only artists". I disagree. I think art needs two elements: Imagination and technical skill. The latter is missing in this case. Does that mean Duchamps was not an artist? Mmmm. Good point, but time has worked in his favour. In this case I don't think it will work in favour of the artist

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

just another sad skill free artist .
Again he does nothing.
Agreed the Idea is not the art , just the beginning.
hell I have Ideas all day but if I don't make it. it is nothing.

I am not sure how this guy got so well known as to build so much(opps sorry it wasn't him that built it was it).

Seems the art world is full of these "question askers" that don't give much of themselves.


"well what do you think" .


Damian Hurst made all his St martins fellows look good despite his lack of talent they all decided to pay him back by raving about the work he didn't do either.


Pathetic art world.

Meanwhile in the real world Artist blacksmiths are struggling to get people to understand that the Art they make is worth something. It will last, and they did work.

Oh but the story is more important right.
the art is not what you make but the tale you tell.

I have this piece I made.
It represents the beautiful shell that is all the men see. battered ,hammered from within , hollow and cold, all they see is the beauty on the outside with no care of the inner truth.
I call her "Lola"



but does it make it better because of the story?

or in the end is it still a piece of angle iron that looks like a naked lady?

as for people reading conceptual art.

many many would rather see some art. not the concept of it.
we all come up with Ideas.

And these CONcepts are not very original often.

Oh but it does make some feel so good about themselves. All those that may like a piece so they can pretend they are better than some dribbling daily mail reader.

They probably are but not because of this.

Nothing is nothing.

How does one get paid to get others to do the work.

Oh see. it is all about the CON.'cept it's not even there.
Do we have to really mention the old emperor with the new clothes .

But then the KLF and their bagged million , that was art. At least they had to bag it.

I think it's a great idea - I voted for it in the 4th plinth competition. It's clever, beautifully simple, and utterly democratic. I shall sign up and if I get on, I will read out all the complaints about how pointless it is.

Gormley is so boring. It is the end of a redundant movement that became the establishment and died. Stiff.
How many unpaid workers is he employing to massage his ego and bank balance?
So this thing called public art who is paying for all the health and safety nonsense? Who is paying for all this?

Just stop ALL government funding of the arts please because it ruins it for us all.
Let art sink or swim on its own merit. Stop financing and encouraging stagnant gestures.

The entire event is begging for green slime.