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Review Feb 13 2009 « | »
Mark Wallinger's Bridled Passion Turner prize-winner Mark Wallinger 50 meter high white horse was announced as the winner of the Ebbsfleet Landmark Project......

Donald Eastwood

Turner prize-winner Mark Wallinger 50 meter high white horse was announced as the winner of the Ebbsfleet Landmark Project earlier this week. By all accounts it was the overwhelming public favourite for the project whose search for a giant gateway installation at the crossover point of road and rail arrivals to England has been dubbed the 'Angel of the South'.

Inevitable public reaction has been quite light-hearted, including comparisons to barbie's horse Blaze, dubbing the installation as 'the Arkle of the South', and questioning how white it will be after a few years (Gormleys wooden structure will age well). It does refer to the famous chalk of the area, the prehistoric white horse at Uffington, the roll of the horse in British history and it is certainly not too ugly or weird to give people a fright.

But Wallinger is a conceptual artist, and the issue that I find most interesting is the inclusion of the bridle, the clear breeding and rearing involved in its muscular body and the trained poise of the animal in question. Apparently the bridle is to 'signify that it has been domesticated and bred by man', its breeding was 'first developed during the 17th and 18th centuries in England, when native mares were crossbred with imported Arabian stallions'.

Is this a closed reference to colonialism? Or a meditation on how England has converted a wild countryside into a civilised suburban infrastructure? If you view the horse in its intended position (here), it seems to be penned in by motorway, rail and power lines. Were it a real 50 meter high horse, it may make a terrified bolt across 'one of the most exciting opportunities for urban regeneration that the United Kingdom has had in decades' leaving a terrible wake of startled family destruction.

Is this really as positive a welcome as it is intended to be? Uffington's white horse seems to bound free on the hill and is positioned to be only fully visible from the heavens; its existence relies on the continued upkeep. This horse, though fun, seems to reflect a sad appropriation of the creature's identity, with deeper historical implications on colonialism and its roll in this part of the national identity.

Not quite the same effect that Gormley's structure has in the north, though on a positive note, it will be twice as big.

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