In the end, it was London mayor Boris Johnson who stole the inevitable comic moment at the unveiling of this year’s Fourth Plinth artwork in Trafalgar Square.
Ahead of the July 25 reveal of the high-profile commission — Katharina Fritsch’s Hahn/Cock, a giant blue cockerel, about which the jokes really write themselves — Johnson took a pop at his long-term friend and British Prime Minister David Cameron’s recent crackdown on internet pornography.
“If you were to Google it in a few years’ time you would not be able to find it because of the collapse of the search engine at the Prime Minister’s behest,” he said, referencing the well-known phallic euphemism attached to the bird’s shortened nickname — a pun that failed to escape the multitude of jokers making the same gag on Twitter all morning.
“I think from such occasions politicians should refrain from artistic interpretation,” he added, though went on to speculate that the work could symbolise “French sporting pride” or that it “serves as a reminder of the perils of genetically modified food.” According to Fritsch, however, the work is supposed to be a symbol of the “art of regeneration, awakening and strength...reflecting our image of ourselves.”
“We are not only the sporting capital of the world, we are also the artistic and cultural capital of the world,” said Johnson to laughter before asking for the “big blue…bird,” to be uncovered to the applause of onlookers, whose number included Jay Jopling, Tim Marlow, Gregor Muir, Ekow Eshun, Jeremy Deller and Jon Snow, huddling beneath the threat of rain amid a gallery of assembled tourists.
Fritsch, whose work is represented in permanent collections including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Schaulager, Basel, and the Glenstone Collection, Maryland, acknowledged both the serious and humorous sides to the work in an interview afterwards.
“The decision was to make a sculpture,” she said. “It wasn’t a political decision, it was made in terms of art. The square is not easy to make something for; it has got this architecture, so many levels... Also it was a very male place. I always wanted to do a cockerel and here I got my chance.”
She added, “I thought the colour would go very well. It’s also an animal and people are emotional about animals. I thought about it as a male symbol, and it has a humorous side. Normally we see things from a male point of view and here we see a picture of a male from a female point of view. It’s a sign of the times.”
Asked what Lord Nelson, who towers over the sculpture on Nelson’s column, would think of her work, she responded, quizzically: “I don’t know. Maybe he would have laughed.”
The commission, which stays in the square for 18 months, is no stranger to humour or subversion, previously being won by Elmgreen & Dragset’s boy on a rocking horse, Antony Gormley’s empty performance space, and Yinka Shonibare’s oversized ship in a bottle – all to the chagrin of more traditional institutions nearby.