#fourth plinth

Cutesaurus is admiring the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square.

Voting is open for the next statue on Trafalgar Square's fourth plinth and I am torn!

These three are my favourites. How can I choose between sweet potato/yam, black cat, or the amazing Indian bus?

What a crazy take Rachel. I am a long-time lover of the Fourth Plinth Commission project, it's honestly one of my favorite public art projects in the world. It's an incredible opportunity for probably millions (fact check me) of people to be exposed to contemporary art in a different context. Yes, it goes to mostly already very successful artists, and I don't even mind that because I think some areas it's really important to be further in your career to have the nuance and experience to be able to handle such a commission.

FOR THE RECORD: Whiteread's plinth is one of my favorite sculptures of all time, I think she's a bonafide genius and the more of her work that is out there the better we are as a society. THAT BEING SAID...

For Whiteread to defend this with, and I'm paraphrasing, "a lot of us very successful artists haven't sold the works we made for this and they are in storage" is honestly such a BAD TAKE. To reduce the importance of public sculpture and art to such a capatilist based interpretation is so bonkers to me, and I know I am obviously projecting my feelings of public art onto Whiteread, but given her practice it feels so deeply contrary to what i get from her practice.

Also isn't it Larry's job to place the work? The gallerists, the dealers, the museums, the collectors to acquire it? How is this on the Plinth project to be responsible to what happens to the sculpture after the install is done? The exhibition of these sculptures in the square was always temporary, and never advertised it as anything else, so...this feels like a you problem, Rachel.

This feels like a conversation had with other collectors and fancy art world people at a dinner party, where everyone is commiserating with the price of storage and how much of their collection isn't seeing the light of day and have you heard about free ports and I'm not sure I'm going to do Basel Switzerland AND Basel Paris because it's just a little too repetitive and back to back but you can probably count on seeing me at Frieze NY and and and....

Moral of this story is not every thought and convo that other people agree with you needs to be an interview with a journalist or press release or however this made it out. Sometimes it's best to keep these things behind closed doors. It's not that I don't know that the fabulously wealthy and successful are having these wildly egocentric out-of-touch conversations in their well-appointed rooms, I just don't need them to shove them in our faces like it's fact.

I wish she would Rachel WhiteRead the room...amiright?

Sculptures by Huma Bhabha, Damián Ortego, Heather Phillipson, Michael Rakowitz, and Raqs Media Collective are in the running to occupy London's Fourth Plinth (Trafalgar Square) next year.  

Heather Phillipson, combines dessert and drones to present a sleek, seductive work with sinister undertones. Described as “a monument to over-confidence and impending collapse,” it balances a tantalizing cherry atop a dollop of whipped cream — only the perfection is tainted by a predatory fly and drone. The work’s title, “THE END,” pretty sums up its unfortunately fitting message for our era.