As for today, though, we went to the National Gallery to see the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square for our art class. Basically, a plinth, other than being a cool word, is a pillar on which a statue stands. There are four of these in Trafalgar Square - and three are occupied by statues. The fourth is empty - and it's open to a changing exhibit of sculptures, concept art, you name it. This year, it's occupied by a multi-colored "hotel" which pigeons apparently really like. Ironically, there were no pigeons inside. Rather, they had decided to occupy a rather bare gumball tree. Guess they thought it needed leaves.
Anyway, the Fourth Plinth is currently having entries for next year judged. There were a couple of ideas that they narrowed it down to: a rather interesting display of concave multicolored discs, a sculpture of a family of meercats, a rather tacky-looking post-modern light-up display about the environment and war and stuff, a bombed out car, a giant ship in a bottle, and, interestingly enough, a safety net for an idea to have people go up there and stand on it for an hour. I'm partial to the meercat idea, myself. Then we got toured around by one of the museum's curators who organized an exhibit on the guy with the ship in the bottle's work. And that was interesting in a number of ways: firstly, the guy's work was amazing. It's very multicultural in its display of what appears to be on the surface very "African". Secondly, the curator was hilarious - giving us history lessons in slang and so on. It helps that he was younger - so I guess that allows him the excuse. And, thirdly, the curator actually knew a lot of stuff that was interesting concerning the history of what was currently there and what used to be there in that exhibit. Curating is an interesting form of art in and of itself.
After that, we went to the National Theater to see Women of Troy - which was displayed in a relatively modern sense. It was awesome - I mean, I like the play in the original sense to begin with - but putting it in a modern context really made for some interesting interpretations on an old Greek text. It didn't seem at all unnatural that it was in the context that it was. War's a really current issue. As for the prophetess Cassandra, she got the most fun treatment out of all the characters. I guess the modern prophetess is a crazed pyromaniac who is prone to taking off her clothes while she's in hysterics. I don't think I've seen a stage that on fire. I also don't think I've ever seen that many pyrotechnical things involved in a play. The explosion at the end gave me a headache! Anyway, in and of itself, the play was a frenzy at some times, and desperately reflective at others. It felt sort of cultish - which is an interesting carryover from the Greek tragedy. Also amusing to note: Menelaus, the Spartan... was portrayed as Scottish. If you know your history... you'll laugh with me. If you don't, you should.
There were no plinths in the play.
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