The opening of the sculpture has been postponed four months due to the coronavirus pandemic. On the fourth pedestal of Trafalgar Square in London, after a four-month delay due to the coronavirus pandemic, a sculpture by Heather Phillipson THE END was unveiled.
Heather Phillipson said that she got the idea for The End when the UK voted to leave the European Union. Then she felt anxiety about the future. Now the feeling has intensified due to the fact that no one knows how serious the consequences of the pandemic will be on the world.
The sculpture, which is a giant ball of whipped cream topped with a cherry, a fly, and a drone, will remain on the pedestal until the spring of 2022. According to Phillipson, she had mixed feelings about discovering her dystopian sculpture, as it is an odd time to be doing something right now. But it may turn out that the right time will never be, so maybe this is the right time, and you just have to let it happen, she said. In her opinion, the sculpture should not be perceived as pessimistic, but rather as a chance for radical changes.
The height of the nine-ton sculpture by the British artist Heather Phillipson entitled The End is 9.4 m. This is another piece of contemporary art, which is exhibited as part of The Fourth Pedestal project. Heather Phillipson’s sculpture is the tallest of 13 works that were displayed on the fourth pedestal.
Vice-Mayor of London for Culture and Cultural Industries Justine Simons stressed that the Fourth Pedestal is the world’s most famous special art project in the public space, and each new work breathes fresh life into the public sphere.
The pedestal of contemporary art
The project The Fourth Pedestal was launched in 1998 specifically to showcase the works of contemporary authors.
Four pedestals at the corners of Trafalgar Square were erected in 1841. On three of them, sculptures of British statesmen were originally installed. And the fourth, opposite the National Gallery building, was empty. But in the late 1990s, it finally found a use.
The newest history of the fourth pedestal began with the exhibition in 1999 of the sculpture of Christ (by Mark Wallinger).
Trafalgar Venus by Mark Quinn (2007), Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle by Yinki Shonibare (2010), and Catharina Fritsch’s giant blue rooster (2013) is most remembered by Londoners.
