Fourth Plinth Proposals

Jeremy Deller with these two projects, both developed in 2008 for the public art project connected to the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square, proposes an anti-monumental and deeply political vision, working – in his own words – more from the perspective of a citizen than from that of an artist, and remaining closely connected to the contemporary situation of a country, then involved in the Iraq War.

The first proposal is a life-size statue of David Kelly, the British scientist whose death, officially ruled a suicide, followed statements he had made to the media expressing doubts about the alleged presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the subsequent parliamentary inquiry.

The second proposal, entitled The Spoils of War, consists of exhibiting the wreckage of a car destroyed by a bomb in Iraq, thus bringing a trace of the war to what has for centuries been the heart of the British Empire and is still universally recognized as a place of strong monumental character.

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