If the Fourth Plinth is for "genuinely public art" then the public should be given the chance to choose what's displayed, says Alastair Sooke.
What is the point of the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square? Since 1998, the plinth, which was designed in 1841 for an equestrian statue that was never finished, has been the setting for a series of temporary public sculptures by celebrated contemporary artists including Mark Wallinger, Rachel Whiteread, and Antony Gormley.
The current incumbent Hahn/Cock, German artist Katharina Fritsch’s gigantic blue cockerel, which has the dishevelled but charismatic presence of a blustery old roué, is a witty deflation of the grandiose bronze statuary nearby. I love it.
But the announcement of a shortlist of six new works competing to be the next two sculptures to occupy the plinth in the square’s northwest corner offers an opportunity to reflect on how these works get chosen.
This is how the process works: with the blessing of the Mayor of London, a panel known as the Fourth Plinth Commissioning Group, chaired by the writer and broadcaster Ekow Eshun, invites artists to submit proposals. From these, a shortlist of six works is selected, and models of the proposals are displayed for several months in the Crypt of St Martin-in-the-Fields in Trafalgar Square.
What is the point of the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square? Since 1998, the plinth, which was designed in 1841 for an equestrian statue that was never finished, has been the setting for a series of temporary public sculptures by celebrated contemporary artists including Mark Wallinger, Rachel Whiteread, and Antony Gormley.
The current incumbent Hahn/Cock, German artist Katharina Fritsch’s gigantic blue cockerel, which has the dishevelled but charismatic presence of a blustery old roué, is a witty deflation of the grandiose bronze statuary nearby. I love it.
But the announcement of a shortlist of six new works competing to be the next two sculptures to occupy the plinth in the square’s northwest corner offers an opportunity to reflect on how these works get chosen.
This is how the process works: with the blessing of the Mayor of London, a panel known as the Fourth Plinth Commissioning Group, chaired by the writer and broadcaster Ekow Eshun, invites artists to submit proposals. From these, a shortlist of six works is selected, and models of the proposals are displayed for several months in the Crypt of St Martin-in-the-Fields in Trafalgar Square.