On the 10th of July, people will begin to sit or stand on the vacant fourth plinth in Trafalgar square.  The participants were chosen by Anthony Gormley, sculptor of Angel of the North, and they will occupy the plinth for a period of one hour each.

One woman will clean the plinth, another, an 83 year old man, will send semaphore messages using flags, and an art student will celebrate her 20th birthday with champagne and cake.

It is not surprising that such a spectacle is being displayed as contemporary art, or that it is being displayed on a public plinth.  After all, in 2007, the fourth plinth held Thomas Schütte’s Hotel for Pigeons - a 5 x 4.5 x 5 metre architectural model of a 21-storey building made from coloured glass, which cost £270,000.

When the project was proposed in 2004, Sandy Nairne, director of the National Portrait Gallery, commented that “there will be something extraordinarily sensual about the play of light through the coloured glass  …   It’s going to feel like a sculpture of brilliance and light.”

The vacant fourth plinth has always stimulated new ideas, however, what is surprising is that the forthcoming Anthony Gormley event, featuring live participants, has been called sculpture.

The most recent paradigm shift in what artists consider to be sculpture occurred in the now legendary Central St Martin’s College of Art and Design in the 1960s.  The leading figure behind this change was the sculptor Sir Anthony Caro.  Caro chose to remove his sculptures from their plinths, displaying them directly on the floor, or sometimes even outside.  He even painted them in bright colours, which, at the time, was deemed revolutionary.

He worked as studio assistant to Henry Moore, who stands shoulder to shoulder with Barbara Hepworth as the greatest of British sculptors, and perhaps as the greatest Modern Sculptors of all time, so it’s perhaps not surprising that Caro developed into something of an innovator himself.  However, with the passing of time, these days, his works are considered quite conventional.

The sculptors who came after Caro pushed the definition of sculpture to breaking point.  Gilbert and George declared themselves to be Living Sculptures, and choreographed every aspect of their life.  Everyday activities such as walking in step, singing and even getting drunk together were declared to be sculptures.

Richard Long, who was born in Bristol in 1945, went even further, making sculptures by travelling into the landscape, arranging natural materials in artistic forms, and recording his thoughts in writing.  His most characteristic sculptures were temporary interventions, such as a circle of rocks or a line drawn in the snow.  Long’s work during this period became so complex that it evolved beyond the bounds of pure sculpture, interacting and merging with nature, inspiring the written word, and evolving into the contemporary art we know today.

Sculptors working in recent years such as Anish Kapoor or the late Lynn Chadwick, who died in 2003, have taken a step back from this conceptual precipice.  Their works take the form of fixed objects which the public can approach and interact with.

Kapoor has experimented with various materials, but generally makes his works in steel.  Chadwick’s most typical works, though extremely stylised, are sculptures depicting the human form in the more traditional medium of bronze.

Even Anthony Gormley, who conceived the display on the fourth plinth, focuses his work on the traditional subject of the human form, although more usually depicted in a semi realistic manner, rather than a realistic interpretation of the living form - far less by living beings themselves.

Sculptures, especially those by masters such as Henry Moore, Sir Anthony Caro, or even Lynn Chadwick can be as highly prized as paintings.  So if you have a work by an established modern or contemporary sculptor, or older works by more traditional sculptors, Borro can provide asset backed loans of up to £100,000 secured against all kinds of art and antiques.

DID YOU KNOW…?

The traditional models for living sculptors were originally plants and other green organisms..