The multi coloured ‘Model for a Hotel’ by Thomas Schütte on the normally empty fourth Plinth, Trafalgar Square, London, UK.
"A collective sigh of unconcern greeted last week’s disclosure of the design for our Olympic stadium and, on the same day, a similar shrug went round those assembled at the unveiling of Thomas Schütte’s new sculpture for Trafalgar Square’s empty fourth plinth. While 2012’s athletics venue raised few eyebrows because architecturally it’s just plain dull, Schütte’s colourful, layered-glass structure failed to surprise because it looks no better than the much smaller, Perspex version that had been widely illustrated and exhibited beforehand. The siting of a big bit of contemporary sculpture smack dab in the middle of town should be cause for applause, but Schütte’s work, a ‘Model for a Hotel’, mocks the very idea of monumental art. For a start it’s see-through and, as the title suggests, it’s merely a model for another yet-to-be realised structure. You can just imagine Schütte applying for the competition: ‘I propose… a proposal.’ So while viewers might look straight through this transparent effigy, many will miss the inherent truth it imparts about the artistic act; that all art is a form of proposition and anything’s possible."
Size: 3418px × 5129px
Location: Trafalgar Square, London, UK
Photo credit: © Maurice Savage / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: 4th, art, artistic, attraction, britain, british, contemporary, controversial, critical, display, england, fourth, glass, hotel’, layered, london, plinth, schutte, schütte, sculpture, square, strange, structure, thomas, tourism, trafalgar, uk, weird, ‘model
