Fourth plinth project ends with cheers, tears and a Hillsborough tribute

LondonLiverpoolFan · October 14, 2009

Hadn't seen this anywhere....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/200...rth-plinth-ends

Fourth plinth project ends with cheers, tears and a Hillsborough tributeEmma Burns, the 2,400th and last plinther, gets an extra three minutes and a hug from Antony Gormley in Trafalgar Square

After 100 days, 35,000 applications and 2,400 people who succeeded in becoming living works of art, rain, hail, thunder, scorching sun and bitter dawn chill, the people's occupation of the empty plinth in Trafalgar Square came to an end three minutes late as one last bunch of red balloons – marking the Liverpool fans who died at Hillsborough stadium 20 years ago – drifted into the London sky.

A gorilla, Godzilla, Captain John wearing his three union flags, the likely lad from Crawley who stripped down to boxer shorts and orange stripey socks, and the quiet Canadian academic who took a week off work to fly back and see the end of a project that had enthralled her, all cheered.

"The question 'but is it art?' is totally irrelevant," said the artist Antony Gormley. His One&Other brainchild caught the imagination of millions worldwide who logged on to watch the likes of 21-year-old Paul Skinner, an unemployed website designer in a top hat, try and fail to complete the Times jumbo crossword, or 84-year-old Gwynneth Pedler, the oldest plinther, signalling in semaphore from her wheelchair.

"The proper question is did it work as a celebration of our national diversity, an extraordinarily precarious mixture of those who just wanted to do something that was fun, and those with a burning cause for which they wished to serve as living representatives – and I think it did.

"I've just come back from National Day in China, and how did they mark it? With an awe-inspiring parade of uniformity where none of the serried ranks of marchers could vary in height by more than 5 millimetres. This was a celebration of exactly the opposite."

Gormley hugged Emma Burns, the 2,400th plinther and a medical photographer from Darlington who, since nobody was arriving to follow her, was afforded the unique privilege of three extra minutes so that she could finish reading the list of the 96 Hillsborough dead.

He gazed up reverently at the second last plinther, Michael Brownsdon, originally from the Isle of Man, 6ft 4ins in his socks, at least 20ft tall in his breast cancer awareness feather boa, pink cowboy hat and cloud of pink balloons. "You were splendid!" Gormley said. Brownsdon blushed a matching shade of pink.

He shook Godzilla warmly by the paw. Gerald Chong from Royston, who works as a property manager in the Isle of Dogs, spent a week making his monster costume before destroying London on the plinth at 8am one July day. "My girlfriend is an architect and she made the model of London – she was a bit cross because she wanted it back, but it was completely smashed to pieces so it went in the bin."

Yvette Price-Mear, from Mansfield, had to conquer painful vertigo to mount the plinth on 19 July. She sold jokes about ducks at £5 a go, raising £550 for a pets charity. She gave the Guardian this one for free: "This duck walks into a chemists, asks for his medication, and says 'just put it on my bill, will you?'"

Andrew Hobley, a slight, grey man from Andover who could be a John le Carre spy and almost is – he is the senior investigator for the local government ombudsman – would never have done anything so exhibitionist. On 29 August he read a list of all of the members of the RAF who died in combat on that date, and added at the end the members of his own and his wife's family who died in the first world war.

He said: "Two rugby fans were heading past towards the gents, with perhaps a drop too much taken, and one shouted out, 'It's not that bad, don't jump.' My son was in the square and he heard the other say, 'He's reading out the names of the dead, show some respect' – so actually that wasn't bad, I think.

"I wasn't massively impressed by the pole dancing – but that was the point, there was room in this for all of us."

Sharon Hepburn, a professor of anthropology who came from Canada to stand quietly on the plinth on 16 July meditating on time, love, memory and death, and her parents whose photograph she carried in her pocket, flew back to watch with tears in her eyes as it all came to an end. "There was something wonderful about it. It was special."

Leo No.8 · October 14, 2009

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