10 Features
Lady in blue
There is a new addition to Trafalgar Square. The fourth plinth is now graced by Lady in Blue, a sculpture in bronze by New York-based artist Tschabalala Self
Unveiled in September, the work represents a contemporary‘ everywoman’ and an everyday Londoner walking forward with ambition and purpose. She is described as being in mid-stride and is wearing a vivid blue dress with accessories that replicate lapis lazuli.
The statue will be on display until 2028.
Public debate
The fourth plinth may be the most famous public art commission in the world.
It began in 1994 when Prue Leith, then chair of the Royal Society of Arts, wrote a letter about the empty plinth to the Evening Standard. This sparked
Taking the fourth a public debate and five years later it hosted the first artwork, Ecce Homo by Mark Wallinger.
Since then, the Mayor of London’ s Fourth Plinth programme has invited leading artists to make sculptures for the plinth.
www. london. gov. uk
Self’ s work is the 16th installation that has appeared on the fourth plinth. The first was in 1999 and depicted a life-sized figure of Christ, naked apart from a loin cloth, with his hands bound behind his back and wearing a barbed wire crown. The work by Mark Wallinger was followed at intervals by equally celebrated artists such Rachel Whiteread( 2001) and Antony Gormley( 2009). The full list of works and their creators, in reverse chronological order, is:
• 850 Improntas by Teresa Margolles
• Antelope: Samson Kambalu
• The Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist: Michael Rakowitz
• The End: Heather Phillipson
• Really Good: David Shrigley
• Gift Horse: Hans Haacke
• Hahn / Cock: Katharina Fritsch
• Powerless Structures, Fig. 101: Elmgreen & Dragset
• Nelson’ s Ship in a Bottle: Yinka Shanibare
• One & Other: Antony
Gormley
• Model for a Hotel: Thomas Schütte
• Alison Lapper Pregnant: Mark Quinn
• Monument: Rachel Whiteread
• Regardless of History: Bill Woodrow
• Ecce Homo by Mark Wallinger.
King George IV, Major General Sir Henry Havelock, and General Sir Charles Napier are featured on the square’ s other plinths. Nelson’ s Column of course remains the centre point. It was constructed in the 1840s to mark the admiral’ s role in the British victory at the Battle of Trafalgar.