A huge bronze sculpture of a young black woman “who represents the city’s spirit” has been chosen to go on the fourth plinth.
Lady in Blue by Tschabalala Self will take its place in Trafalgar Square in 2026 and will be followed in 2028 by Andra UrsuÅ£a‘s Untitled - a hollow, life-sized person on a horse covered in a shroud and cast in a slime-green resin.
Self’s work of a woman in a striking blue dress and heels is described as paying “homage to a young, metropolitan woman of colour” and as “a walking icon of the everyday”.
The New York born artist said she was “honoured” to be chosen, adding: “My work 'Lady in Blue’ will bring to Trafalgar Square a woman that many can relate to. She is not an idol to venerate or a historic figurehead to commemorate. She is a woman striding forward into our collective future with ambition and purpose.
“She is a Londoner, who represents the city’s spirit.”
Andra UrsuÈa said her work was inspired by thinking about history and public monuments, adding: “Trafalgar Square is a place where multiple histories face one another in an open-ended standoff. It will never be finished.”
It is 25 years since the first work, Mark Wallinger’s Ecce Homo, was unveiled in central London and the next commission to grace the site, Teresa Margolles’Imprints, will be displayed from this September.
It is made up of plaster casts of the faces of hundreds of trans people which will be arranged around the plinth and will begin to naturally erode in the face of London’s weather with the details of the faces slowly fading.
Justine Simons OBE, Deputy Mayor for Culture and Creative Industries said: “I'm delighted that Tschabalala Self and Andra UrsuÅ£a have been selected as the next artists to display their work on the world-renowned Fourth Plinth.
“These artists were chosen from a fantastic shortlist that has inspired debate among Londoners. The sculpture prize has entertained and brought out the art critic in everybody for 25 years, and I have no doubt these two very different pieces will continue that fine tradition.”
The fourth plinth has not had a permanent statue since 1841 when Charles Barry designed the square.
Barry meant for this plinth, in the north-west corner of the square, to be for an equestrian statue of William IV, to stand alongside the other three statues, depicting George IV, Sir Charles Napier and Sir Henry Havelock.
But lack of funds at the time prevented this fourth statue from being created.
However, in 1994 Prue Leith, then chair of the Royal Society of Arts, wrote a letter to the Standard suggesting something should be done about the empty plinth. This sparked a flurry of public debate and five years later, it hosted its first artwork.
Since then, the Mayor of London’s Fourth Plinth programme has invited leading artists to make sculptures for the plinth. These have included a bright blue cockerel, a golden rocking horse and a giant ship in a bottle.
