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The Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square is kind of a big deal. Okay, it’s a huge deal. At the moment, the public art space is home to an oversized cherry-topped slop of cream, complete with a larger-than-life fly and drone. It’s called ‘The End’ by Heather Phillipson and will remain there until September 2022.
And what's taking its place has just been announced. First up in 2022 will be ‘Antelope’ by Malawi-born artist and academic Samson Kambalu, a huge sculpture depicting Baptist preacher and pan-Africanist John Chilembwe meeting European missionary John Chorley. It re-stages a 1914 photo from the opening of Chilembwe’s new church in Nyasaland, now Malawi, a year before he led an uprising against colonial rule. Important to note that Chilembwe’s hat-wearing is actually an act of anti-colonial defiance: there was a rule that forbade Africans from wearing hats in front of white people.
After that, in 2024, will be ‘850 Improntas (850 Imprint)’ by Mexican conceptual artist Teresa Margolles. It’s an installation of 850 casts of trans people's faces from London and across the world, most of whom are sex workers. It will be arranged like a Tzompantli skull rack from Mesoamerican civilisations (between Central Mexico and northern Costa Rica), which is used to display the remains of war captives or sacrifice victims. The casts themselves will be made by applying plaster directly onto the faces of trans people, to literally infuse hair and skin cells into the art.
These two works were selected after 17,500 public votes on a shortlist of artists that included Nicole Eisenman, Goshka Macuga, Ibrahim Mahama and Paloma Varga Weisz too. It might be a long wait until we get to see any of these sculptures, but at least it gives us something to look forward to.
Find more information on these sculptures by clicking right here.
While waiting for these big public sculptures to show up, why not check out the best public sculptures in London that you can see right now?
Don't like your art outdoors? All of London's top ten exhibitions are mercifully indoors.