Fourth Plinth (1841)
Sir Charles Barry (1795 - 1860)
Fourth Plinth, 1841
Granite, mortar & pigeon poo
~ 4.8m x 2.43m x 6.7m
Trafalgar Square, London (UK)
The Fourth Plinth is not a work of art. As far as plinths go it’s not even that interesting. Like a tiered cake, it has three rectangular slabs that get progressively smaller as they rise. It is modestly detailed with granite and though stonemasons might argue otherwise, the design is intentionally bland. Like many plinths it was designed so that it wouldn’t visually detract from whatever would sit on top. Alas, arts funding isn’t just a modern problem. The plinth sat empty for 157 years due to a lack of budget.
Then in 1998 a turn of the millennium initiative enabled the temporary display of three different sculptures, allocating one year to each. This led to a series of reports and public consultations that ultimately concluded a rolling programme of artworks was preferable to settling on one definitive commission. Debate still rages regarding this decision. Not because people want another boring bronze statue of a dead white man, but because contemporary art is frequently polarising. Many people didn’t know what to make of Katharina Fritsch’s 5 metre high blue rooster, but tabloid writers were overjoyed with the opportunity to legitimately use the words “blue cock” in a headline.
I hope the programme keeps going indefinitely. Like a brand new sketchbook or empty canvas, the Fourth Plinth represents opportunity. It represents potential. It is a blank slate for artists to dream big, and dream bold. In some regards it’s an artist’s version of Hyde Park’s Speakers Corner, a chance to express a message without knowing if anyone is actually listening. Although in this instance the work is definitely going to be seen. Approximately 15 million tourists visit Trafalgar Square annually, and I’m sure that many of them would have been amused, confused, awed or engaged by the wide range of works that have been placed on top.
Yinka Shonibare put a scale model of Nelson’s ship HMS Victory inside of a corked glass bottle. Rachel Whiteread made a life size cast model of the plinth using clear resin and placed it upside down. It weighed 24,680 lbs (11,195 kgs). Heather Phillipson’s dollop of whipped cream with a cherry included a giant fly and drone broadcasting a live surveillance feed to the web. David Shrigley’s elongated thumbs-up thumb let us know everything was gonna be alright.
None of these works can be accurately described without the words ‘giant’ or ‘huge’ or ‘larger than life’. The height of the plinth is four times taller than the average adult, so the artworks are scaled up accordingly. Many details can easily be seen from across the Square. In fact, it’s often easier to view these works from afar since standing at the base is a neck-craning strain and an awkward angle.
Over the last quarter century 14 different sculptures have temporarily occupied the plinth but I wish there had been more. Two years feels like an unnecessarily stretched out timetable for something located in such a public and easily accessible location, but I appreciate the logistics, cost and effort to create such large art justifies an extended display. But that’s just half the problem. The bigger issue, recently investigated by The Guardian, is what to do with them afterwards? These huge, heavy and incredibly cumbersome artworks can’t easily be moved, and repositioning them is “a unique challenge, since many of the pieces have been designed to be seen from below” which might explain why so few have been re-shown or permanently placed. In hindsight, these issues only add to the brilliance of my favourite commission.
From 6 July to 14 October 2009, Antony Gormley’s ‘One & Other’ project enabled 2,400 members of the public to each spend one hour on the plinth. They were allowed to do anything they wished and this video recap shows the crazy range of results. I was supposed to be one of those people. I was one of the 35,000 applicants lucky enough to be awarded an hour, which I unfortunately had to give back after I was subsequently assigned to an out of town business trip. To this day I’m still not sure what I would have done up there, but it was one of those “you had to be there” experiences and I just wanted to be able to say I was part of it.
The ‘Fourth Plinth’ moniker is a reminder that three other plinths exist in Trafalgar Square but I can say with certainty that asking what’s on them isn’t a pub quiz question that many people could correctly guess. I’m much more confident that a large number of recent visitors will remember Samson Kambalu’s giant sculpture of two men turned away from each other, even if they never read the plaque explaining what it means. It re-stages a photograph of European missionary John Chorley and Baptist preacher John Chilembwe, who wears a hat in defiance of the colonial rule that forbade Africans from wearing hats in front of white people. Kambalu’s use of bronze visually matches the sculptures of dead white men on the other three plinths but his message is contemporary and very much in line with a modern England that is still learning how to give voice and exposure to it’s many untold, minority and marginalised histories. It’s a theme that will continue with upcoming commissions already awarded for late 2024, 2026 and 2028.
Overseeing the selection process is a group that commonly refers to the Fourth Plinth as “one of the world’s most famous public art commissions”, which is arguably a misnomer based on visitor eyes. I’d argue that very few of the tourists that visit Trafalgar Square are aware of the nature of the programme. But I imagine more than a few repeat visitors have been surprised on their return to find that crazy sculpture has been replaced with something equally weird, and I love being there to eavesdrop when they do.
That’s why I like it.
There’s always something new to look forward to.
Additional reading:
Previously, on Why I Like It:
Aug — Soundsuit (2010), Nick Cave
Jul — Anhelos (2016), Andrea Ringeling
Jun — King Charles III (2024), Jonathan Yeo