Well, you can have a sweet potato, an ice cream van, an equestrian figure draped in green slime or a black cat. Seven models for the vacancies on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square in 2026 and 2028 are on display in the National Gallery, and you can vote for which lucky sculpture gets two years on the most prominent public space in England. But it’s a band of the elite that gets to choose the shortlist, and the only name on the Fourth Plinth Commissioning Group I actually recognised is that of Jon Snow, the newsreader.
The space is already filled for the two years from September. It will be occupied by a work called Improntas (Imprints) by Teresa Margolles and features the faces of hundreds of trans people arranged in the shape of a Mesoamerican skull rack. It represents the rights of trans people. Except you wouldn’t necessarily know that, looking at all those faces. Unlike your standard equestrian statue, which only needs a name, job description and date, and unlike Lord Nelson on his pillar, it needs a short essay to make it intelligible.
