The new Fourth Plinth sculpture was installed at the weekend, and it features the work of Mexican artist Teresa Margolles. She was a former forensic pathologist, and the work is inspired by th Aztec sculpture of skulls found in Mexico City, the Huey Tzompantli. The work was also inspired by her transgender friend who was murdered, and it is a memorial to all transgender people who have endured violence. The faces are from various participants in the artwork, and each on is different. Some of them contain make-up.
The faces or masks are made using plaster, and they are expected to weather over time, changing the sculpture throughout the next couple of years.
Previous commissions that had time on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square can be seen in the following posts:
2022: 'Antelope' by Samson Kambalu
2020: 'The End' by Heather Phillipson
2018: 'The Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist'
2016: Really Good
2015: A horse skeleton with a stock ticker tape
2014: A giant blue rooster
2012: A boy on a rocking horse
2011: Ships in a bottle
2009: members of the public were encouraged to do their own 'thing' on the plinth
2005: limbless pregnant female statue
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