The newest installation on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square is now dominated by a Big Blue Cock. The Hahn/Cock by German artist Katharina Fritsch to be precise. The coverage of the unveiling has been covered with Glee by the UK press using every possible double entendre you could think of.
I saw it a few days ago. It is massive, it is a very bright blue and it is taking the piss. We Londoners do have a sense of humour and as Boris puts it, putting this up on the Fourth Plinth makes London the cultural capital of the world, or words to that effect.
Katarina
Gleefully feminist, the work pokes amiable fun at the vainglorious statues of men (Nelson, George IV, and generals Havelock and Napier) that surround it in this most imperial of British public spaces. “Humour is always a big thing for me,” said Fritsch.
Noting the fact that the cockerel is the national emblem of France (a connection registered by Fritsch, she said, only once she had proposed the idea), he added: “I hope French people will not take it as excessive British chauvinism – but for me it stands for the recent British triumph in the Tour de France, which we have won twice in a row … it is a symbol of French sporting pride, brought like a chicken to London. We have mounted this French cock at the heart of our imperial square.”
Fritsch added: “It is a feminist sculpture, since it is I who am doing something active here – I, a woman, am depicting something male. Historically it has always been the other way around. Now we are changing the roles. And a lot of men are enjoying that.”
Read the full article in the Guardian here.
Watch Boris at the unveiling, injecting his usual witty comments but it must have been tricky not using the word cock, he called it “The Big Blue Bird”.
You can see the previous art works on the Fourth Plinth here.
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