We wanted the Battenberg (and it was also Mayor's favourite) but alas it wasn't to be: the next two installations on Trafalgar Square's Fourth Plinth will be a bronze cast of a boy on a rocking horse, and a giant blue cockerel.
The rocking horse, officially titled Powerless Structures, Fig.101, is by Scandinavian pair Elmgreen & Dragset, who are best known for subtly subversive artwork that casts a wry eye on social power structures (best seen in their 2006 Serpentine exhibition, The Welfare Show). The new piece continues that trend, casting an impish insouciance toward the Square's other horsebound plinth residents.
Powerless Structures, Fig.101 will be unveiled next year. It will be followed the following year German sculptor Katharina Fritsch's Hahn/Cock, a ultramarine cockerel that, according to the artist, symbolises regeneration, awakening and strength, and willl bring a "sense of hallucination" to the Square.
Here's a video of the Mayor making the announcement this morning, courtesy of Zoe Griffiths:
