4th Plinth Trans sculpture

[Twistybranch]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13864589/Sculpture-featuring-faces-transgender-non-binary-gender-non-conforming-people-unveiled-fourth-plinth-Trafalgar-Square-theres-no-statue-late-Queen.html

New sculpture on the 4th plinth. It’s never been clearer that these are the faces of biological men. You see the bone structure, the brow bone, the jaw. Not hidden under make-up, filters or long hair.

Thank you to the artist for showing us the real face

Ffs. Why anyway? Why is it somehow 'worthy' of a plinth to be a man in a dress or someone who thinks they're 'non binary', whatever the hell that means. It feels like a return to 'all public sculptures should be a military man on a horse'. Because yes, they look male. Surely we have enough bloody male statues

How pointless.
But I'm glad they found a totally normal and ordinary member of the public to stand and gaze at it. 🙄

"Margolles, who trained as a forensic pathologist and once worked in a morgue, is known for creating works using blood and material from crime scenes to explore death and conflict.

At the beginning of her career she was given a stillborn fetus by a mother which she encased in cement and was known for smuggling blood and grease from autopsies to use in her sculptures."

What the fuck?! Using bits of dead people that were smuggled out of the morgue is another level of WTF! 😨

That doesn't look much like art - but one must not say so, of course! I vote we stick up Richard Whittingdon on the 4th plinth (charitable man whose fortune is still providing aid to the poor 600 years after he died in 1422) or possibly Richard, Duke of York, who managed to start the Wars of the Roses and landed us with the Tudors. Or - hold the thought - a proper statue of Mary Wollstonecraft, or perhaps Sylvia Pankhurst. Oh, no - they're women. Sorry, forgot. Transwhatevers are so much more brave than the women who fought for women's rights.

Wasn't there a massive scandal with body parts being taken and kept by the NHS and the Police(?) without permission. I remember parents having to have several funerals because bits from their dead children kept turning up. There's a drive now to repatriate the remains of indigenous people taken for museums and collections.

But, what she's done is perfectly fine, possibly stunning and/or brave.

As for the artwork itself. Transpeople are hollow, fragile, inward looking masks are they?

sooooo without the costume of the opposite sex or the hair/make up etc, isn’t it just blindingly obvious what sex they are?

Masks.
How creepily fitting.

Oh my goodness this is hilarious.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp8l1q7e64po

You may recognise one of them!

Over the next 18 months, the faces will be naturally weathered by the wind and rain and fade away, leaving a 'kind of anti-monument', the artist previously told The Guardian.

Is the fading away an expression of the way the fad is going... one could only hope.

It took me several attempts to grasp the concept the first time I read it.
If I remember correctly I thought- how very sad for those transwomen, from South America where their lives are so very dangerous, but why Trafalgar Square?
Then I realised they hadn’t died, so not a memorial at all.
Then I read about the gruesome body parts thing.
And am processing my surprise that this was a woman of the kind that suffers miscarriage, and does good, useful work with dead people- but now does this kind of thing instead.

Lots to process.

There are so many comments here to be made about the nature of the exhibit, the attendance and the reporting of this event.

Not one part of which makes me think 'ooo normal woman you'd see walking down the street'.

😂 Just came on to say the same thing!

As PP above: hope it does all fade away!

Its as aptly symbolic as the Gill statue outside the beeb.

‘Transfemicide’ and ‘transmisogny’ are what Katie fights against, or so she says….
Strange times.

Yes!

I am cross because I want the fourth plinth to be kept empty for the sad day when Larry the Cat is no longer prowling around Downing Street. I can think of no more appropriate occupant to symbolise continuity, loyalty, steadfastness, and the British love of animals as Larry.

It reminds me of those weird many faced god masks in Game of Thrones.

At least Katie has the grace to acknowledge that the murder rate for transwomen in the UK is not as high as the murder rate for transwomen in Mexico - not by a long chalk Katie, a very very very long chalk. Shame Katie does not acknowledge the rate for murders and other acts of violence committed by transwomen in the UK, which is I understand surprisingly high considering the % of transwomen in the adult population. Perhaps Katie was being kind.

The Alder Hey scandal.

Edit to add: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alder_Hey_organs_scandal

I'd be happy to see a Larry the Cat statue up there when the time comes!

You know they're not all transwomen/biological men right? There's women (transmen, non-binary, etc.) on there too...

Be mad about the sculpture for its trans message or that the artist is clearly weird, but you sound silly when you say things like "It’s never been clearer that these are the faces of biological men. You see the bone structure, the brow bone, the jaw. Not hidden under make-up, filters or long hair."

But I'm glad they found a totally normal and ordinary member of the public to stand and gaze at it.

So just faces of people whose biological sex is quite clear then 🤷🏻‍♀️

I didn’t know the name of the artist but the mention of a morgue rang a bell.

Her exhibit at Artes Mundi was one of the ones I found most memorable. It’s over a decade ago but it stuck in my mind. It was very atmospheric.

It didn’t occur to me that she might have actually stolen from a mortuary to produce her work.

https://artesmundi.org/prizes/artes-mundi-prize-5/