wfgodot
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Big blue *advertiser censored* erected on fourth plinth in London's Trafalgar Square. (Guardian)
London mayor Boris Johnson unveils Katharina Fritsch's Hahn/*advertiser censored*, the latest artwork to fill square's empty plinth
London mayor Boris Johnson unveils Katharina Fritsch's Hahn/*advertiser censored*, the latest artwork to fill square's empty plinth
more, with a video, at the linkThere is simply no other way of putting it, and nor would earthy British wit have it any other way. A giant bright-blue *advertiser censored* its feathers proudly upstanding, its coxcomb as stiff as a pennant in the breeze has been erected in Trafalgar Square, London, and no double entendre is too good for it.
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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. "It stops things from becoming too severe. I like English humour. It is so often very dark."
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The fourth plinth, as it is known, is in the square's north-west corner. Built in 1841, it was designed to hold an equestrian statue like its twin, in the northeast corner, that depicts George IV. But funds ran out and it remained empty. In 1998 the first in a series of temporary sculptures for the plinth was commissioned. Works by Rachel Whiteread, Yinka Shonibare, Mark Wallinger and Antony Gormley are among those to have occupied the space since.
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