This week in Trafalgar Square in the heart of London a stunning artwork featuring the plaster face casts of hundreds of transgender people went on display, where their features will be worn away by London’s wind and rain over the next 18 months.
This is the latest artwork placed atop the “ Fourth Plinth,” a large stone pedestal in this famous London square. By Mexican artist Teresa Margolles’ “Mil Veces un Instante (A Thousand Times in an Instant)” is a 3.3-metric-ton (3.6-US-ton) cube covered in face masks of 726 trans, nonbinary and gender nonconforming people..
The fourth plinth – a 24-foot (7-meter) high stone pedestal — was erected in 1841 for a never-completed equestrian statue, and since 1999 has been occupied by a series of artworks for about 18 months at a time.
The new sculpture evokes a Tzompantli, a rack used in Mesoamerican civilizations to display the skulls of captured enemies and sacrifice victims. It pays tribute to one of the artist’s friends, atransgender woman named Karla who was killed in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico The crime remains unsolved.
@unpublishedarcMIL VECES UN INSTANTE 🤍🫂(‘A Thousand Times in an Instant’) by Teresa Margolles
Labels: 2024, artwork, Teresa Margolles', The 4th Plinth, Trafalgar Square, transgender tribute
