The Fourth Plinth shortlist is another abysmal sermon from Britain’s art-world elite
The commissars behind London’s biggest public art commission seem obsessed with telling the public what to think on every issue going
25 May 2021 • 11:04am
Nicole Eisenman s The Jewellery Tree is among the works shortlisted for the next Fourth Plinth commissions
Credit: Getty
It was inevitable that Trafalgar Square’s Fourth Plinth would end up as another platform for the culture wars. Since Edward Colston’s statue was heaved into Bristol docks by Black Lives Matter protesters just under a year ago, the question of who we memorialise and monumentalise has become an obsession for local politicians – not least London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, whose Commission on Diversity in the Public Realm was thrown together in direct response to the Colston affair, and tasked with making London’s landmarks more “diverse”.