Newspaper article - The fourth Plinth

What do I want to see on the fourth plinth? Nothing

I don't object to a statue of war hero Sir Keith Park, but I'd rather the fourth plinth stayed as it was: empty

A model of the statue of Sir Keith Park destined for the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square. Photograph: Charlotte Kirkham

I always feel a tug of emotion when I look at John Mills' sculpture of a group of firefighters aiming their hose at St Paul's cathedral. It doesn't occur to me to think of this memorial to Blitz firemen as a piece of "figurative art" or even as art at all, but it conjures up an image of this same spot in the blazing nights of the 1940s.

So we should be careful about pouring avant-garde bile on the statue ofBattle of Britain hero Sir Keith Park, which will soon be temporarily sited on Trafalgar Square's fourth plinth. Those fighter pilots really were heroes, and they really did save us. Read Jonathan Glancey's book Spitfire if you don't believe me.

That said, it seems to me to present all the same problems as Gormley's dear departed project. A bronze statue of a solitary figure – albeit slightly larger than life-size – is no more suited to standing on an equestrian plinth than a real person is.

The only sculpture I have ever liked on the monument is Mark Wallinger's figure of Christ, because it made a virtue of the plinth's strangeness. It used the mass of the stone to say things about human smallness. It also connected in a productive – as opposed to pointlessly antagonistic – way with the cultural riches in the National Gallery, situated so close by.

I don't want to see any more public art on the plinth – no war heroes and no more modern art either. I don't want it to be an attraction any longer because, Wallinger aside, everything put there seems to become at best a scabrous distraction from, and at worst a conscious insult to, the great art in the nearby National Gallery. In there, you can interact for free with some of the most moving and satisfying and beautiful works of art in the world. Why stop at the threshold to gawp at a plinth and its latest silly adornment?

If the plinth was outside Parliament, that would be interesting. Imagine the possibilities for political art. But in Trafalgar Square the nearest institution to "subvert" is the gallery. And so it becomes the innocent target of every second-rate public artist's spurious iconoclastic cant. You know what I would like to see on the fourth plinth? Air

The Fourth Plinth

From 6th July - 14th October, Anthony Gormleys 'One and Another' project is taking place in Trafalgar Square. As part of the brief we were asked to participate in the one and another project, working in pairs we discussed ideas how we could spend 5 minutes on the plinth, expressing ourselves. Working with Juliette, we decided to play some kind of game which would involve the audience, we chose a giant Jenga game and chose to get people from the audience to climb the plinth and take turns playing the game. We thought this could be recorded by way of a photograph being taken of each person and combining them all in some kind of exhibition.

We presented the idea in a powerpoint presentation.

From 6th July - 14th October, Anthony Gormleys 'One and Another' project is taking place in Trafalgar Square. As part of the brief we were asked to participate in the one and another project, working in pairs we discussed ideas how we could spend 5 minutes on the plinth, expressing ourselves. Working with Juliette, we decided to play some kind of game which would involve the audience, we chose a giant Jenga game and chose to get people from the audience to climb the plinth and take turns playing the game. We thought this could be recorded by way of a photograph being taken of each person and combining them all in some kind of exhibition.