LONDON.
Over the past seven years the Fourth Plinth in the northwest corner of Trafalgar Square has become home to some of the world’s most innovative artworks.
The plinth was originally designed by Sir Charles Barry in 1841 to display an equestrian statue, however due to insufficient funds the statue was never completed. In 1998 – over one hundred and fifty years later – the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) commissioned three contemporary sculptures by Mark Wallinger, Bill Woodrow and Rachel Whiteread to be displayed temporarily on the plinth.
Following the enormous public interest generated by these commissions, the Mayor of London began the Fourth Plinth Programme to continue this tradition and build on its success. The Fourth Plinth has since featured works including Marc Quinn’s Alison Lapper Pregnant (2005), Thomas Schütte’s Model for a Hotel (2007) Antony Gormley’s popular One and Other (2009), Yinka Shonibare’s Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle (2010), the recent commission Elmgreen & Dragset’s ‘Powerless Structures, Fig. 101’ (2012) and the new commission, Hahn/Cock (2013) by German sculptor Katharina Fritsch.
Katharina Fritsch is one of Germany’s leading contemporary artists. Born in Essen, Fritsch studied at the Kunstakademie in Dusseldorf and has exhibited widely across Europe, Japan and the USA. She represented Germany at the 1995 Venice Biennale and has been the subject of exhibitions at DIA Centre for the Arts, New York, the San Francisco Museum of Contemporary Art, Tate Modern, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and K21, Duesseldorf. Her work is represented in many significant permanent collections including The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, Schaulager, Basel and Museum of Modern Art, Frankfurt.
Photos: Gautier Deblonde.
