Lady in Blue Is Up on the Fourth Plinth — and the Critics Split

London's most argued-over pedestal has a new tenant. Tschabalala Self's Lady in Blue was unveiled on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square on Thursday 10 September, the 16th commission in the programme's history, following Teresa Margolles' Mil Veces un Instante. BBC News, CNN and The Art Newspaper report that it will stand for two years; City Hall gives no end date, but says the work will then move permanently to Fornebu, in Norway.

The work is a bronze figure of a contemporary woman, painted blue, with jewellery in the colour of lapis lazuli. Born in New York in 1990, Self works across painting, printmaking and sculpture, with a practice built around representations of the human figure — particularly women. City Hall's release on the day quoted her plainly: 'She is not an idol to venerate or a historic figure to commemorate. She is an everyday person much like the many who occupy the square daily.' An everywoman, raised above the square where the city argues with itself: the placement is the point.

Tschabalala Self: 'She is striding forward into our collective future with ambition, purpose and optimism.'

The critics split

The reviews landed on opposite sides of the square. In the Guardian, Jonathan Jones called it 'one of the most beautiful sculptures put on Trafalgar Square's empty plinth' and 'a carnivalesque masterpiece'. The Telegraph ran the opposite verdict under the headline 'Trafalgar Square's Fourth Plinth welcomes yet another artistic dud', its critic Cal Revely-Calder concluding that 'this figure has little to give'.

ARTnews, rounding up the response a day later, reported four stars from the Guardian and four from the Times, whose chief art critic Laura Freeman called it 'a joyful sculpture with a sashay', against two from the Telegraph.

City Hall, which funds it, was in no doubt. Justine Simons, the Deputy Mayor for Culture and the Creative Industries, called the Fourth Plinth 'one of the most exciting public art commissions anywhere in the world' and said: 'I know London is going to love her!' The programme is funded by the Mayor of London with support from Arts Council England and Bloomberg Philanthropies, and the next commission, by Andra Ursuţa, is due in 2028.

Lady in Blue was also a highlight of London Sculpture Week, which ran its fifth edition until Sunday 27 September across the city: Frieze Sculpture, East Bank, Sculpture in the City and The Line, with public art tours, workshops and artist performances. On Friday 25 September the programme listed an 'Introduction to the Fourth Plinth' in Trafalgar Square, with the Mayor of London's Fourth Plinth team on the plinth's history and Lady in Blue, and the same day carried the week's symposium, 'Reframing Monumentality: Contemporary Sculptural Practices in the Public Realm'. For nine days the whole city became the gallery; the week is over, but the sculpture stays up for two years. Trafalgar Square just gets the front cover.