Trafalgar Square is a place steeped in history and where London life is in full swing. The public square hosts commemorations, celebrations, demonstrations and, since 1998, a succession of monumental sculptures commissioned from various artists as part of the Fourth Plinth Project. The sculpture chosen this year to be enthroned on the Fourth Base, the northwest pedestal of the square, is called THE END and stems from the imagination of London artist Heather Phillipson.
The work represents a giant swirl of cream crowned with a cherry, not to mention two ‘parasites’: a fly and a drone. Through this sculpture, Phillipson attempts to explore the physical context of the place, while more broadly addressing its ideological context. Or, rather, it is a comment on how the privacy of the individual, mass distribution and surveillance is organised in the same space.
THE END is the cherry on the cream. And, on top of the cherry and the cream, the parasites.
THE END embodies exuberance and uneasiness. Overhung by a giant and unstable load, the base becomes a monument glorifying pride and imminent collapse. The surrounding architecture and population play a role in the understanding of the work, evolving in this ill-dimensioned landscape, which magnifies the banal in apocalyptic proportions.
Philipson's videos and sculptural installations bring together image, noise, object and language. Her work, whether talking about her multi-screen videos, her sculptures or her poems, explores how physical and emotional identities are made, manipulated and evaporated. Her work often appears as collages of physical and digital trash taken from everyday life.
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The Fourth Pedestal is the northwest pedestal of Trafalgar Square. Intended to support an equestrian statue of William IV in the 1840s, it was stripped for lack of meaning. For more than 150 years, the fate of the base has been debated without success. In 1998, the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) commissioned three contemporary sculptures to be temporarily displayed on the pedestal.
The initiative was transformed into an ongoing programme, exhibiting works of art temporarily instead of imposing a definitive commemorative figure on London inhabitants. The Fourth Plinth Project as we know it today has been run since 2005 by the Mayor of London and his cultural team.
The year 2020 marks the installation of the 10th sculpture on the base since the resumption of the project by the municipal council. THE END will be unveiled in March.
