Think of England
Mark Wallinger’s proposal for a 50-metre-high sculpture of a white horse at Ebbsfleet, Kent, has captured the headlines. He talks to Martin Gayford about public art, national identity and bloodstock.
Martin Gayford, Sunday, 29th June 2008
Other notable Wallinger works include his perfect recreation in Tate Britain last year of Brian Haw’s Parliament Square anti-war protest placards, a film of himself dressed as a bear wandering round the Neue National Galerie in Berlin (Fig. 3), and Ecce Homo, a life-size cast of a man in the pose of Christ before Pilate that occupied the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square in 2000 (Fig. 6). So obviously, there is no such thing as a signature Wallinger. Is that a weakness? He doesn’t think so. ‘My identity as an artist is rather elusive, and I prefer it to be that way because it’s more interesting. Surely people must get too bored doing the same thing, time after time. I think that’s just turning out product. I’ve never been interested in doing that.’ The downside is that his work is inclined to be hit or miss. The white horse, though – if it is ever built – looks like being an enormous hit.
The works illustrating this article are by Mark Wallinger (b. 1959).
1 A computer-generated image of the shortlisted proposal for a sculpture at Ebbsfleet, Kent. The horse will be 50 m high. Image© The artist, 2008 2 Mark Wallinger. Photo: Charlie Hopkinson, © The artist, courtesy Anthony Reynolds Gallery, London
3 Sleeper, still from a video installation, 2004-05. Photo: © the artist, courtesy of Anthony Reynolds Gallery, London
4 Folk Stones, made for the Folkestone Triennial, 2008. Stones, 9 x 9 m.
5 A computer-generated image of a sculpture, Y, made for Bat Willow Meadow in the grounds of Magdalen College, Oxford. It will be unveiled later this month. Steel, 10.15 x 8.75 x 0.13 m. Image: © The artist
6 Ecce Homo, 1999, as installed on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, London in 2000. Marbleised resin and gilded barbed wire, life-sized cast. Photo: courtesy of the artist
For more information on the Folkestone Triennial, go to www.Folkestonetriennial.org.uk
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