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<\/p>\nLondon\u00a0\u2014\u00a0\n <\/p>\n
\n A new sculpture has been unveiled in London\u2019s Trafalgar Square, where it will stand for the next two years. \u201cLady in Blue,\u201d by New York-based artist Tschabalala Self, is a bronze statue of an anonymous young Black woman wearing a form-fitting blue dress, matching heels and glass beaded jewelry. She\u2019s strong and she\u2019s going places.\n <\/p>\n
\n It is the 16th statue to be installed on the so-called Fourth Plinth, as part of an ongoing public art commission first launched by the Royal Society of Arts and today supported by the Mayor of London, Arts Council England and Bloomsbury Philanthropies.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cLady in Blue\u201d stands out against the 19th-century historical landmarks that already occupy the square, namely Nelson\u2019s Column and Landseer\u2019s Lions. Instead of commemorating the past, Self wanted to represent the contemporary everywoman. \u201cI wanted to direct everyone\u2019s attention to the future,\u201d the artist said during an interview at Pilar Corrias gallery ahead of the statue\u2019s unveiling. \u201cI don\u2019t think there are enough monuments that are about our shared future to come.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n It is also one of the rare statues in the UK depicting a Black woman. Out of around 1,500 statues in London, just a handful represent women of color. Self, who is known for her distinct depictions of the Black female body that generate discourse around intersections of race, gender and sexuality, is not surprised by this statistic. \u201cI really want people to take away from the sculpture the feeling that they can feel free to exist as they are without explanation,\u201d she said.\n <\/p>\n
\n But, she adds, representation should not be the sole purpose of her sculptures. \u201cIt\u2019s not that speaking about blackness minimizes the work, because I don\u2019t believe that to be the case. It\u2019s just that I don\u2019t think that\u2019s the focal point of the project,\u201d Self said. \u201cI also feel like when people enter the work through that framework, they\u2019re already starting a process of reduction because they have come to name and define the figures by their identity politics.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
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\n This is Self\u2019s first public sculpture in the UK since 2023, when her sculpture \u201cSeated\u201d was defaced after being installed in the English town Bexhill-On-Sea. Vandals spray painted the skin of the sculpted Black woman white. \u201cI was very upset when the sculpture was vandalised, but ultimately that experience turned out being one that was very edifying for me,\u201d Self said. \u201cIt highlighted how real people, not just figurative sculptures, experience these same kind of aggressions and acts of violence and intimidation in real life. So I feel like for those reasons, the sculpture did its work.\u201d A community clean-up day was organised following the incident and the white paint was removed. \u201cThrough the restoration of the sculpture, it also showed people\u2019s willingness and desire to overcome the societal ills.\u201d With \u201cLady in Blue,\u201d she feels prepared for more conversations about the importance of figuration and representing all identities in public art, \u201ceven if the conversations take a dark turn, because I know ultimately, it would be for the greater education of all parties involved,\u201d she said.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cLady in Blue\u201d is a striking addition to the London landmark with her jewelry, braided hair and matching lapis lazuli outfit \u2014a shade which was inspired by the rare rock used as a pigment since antiquity. But more important is the statue\u2019s powerful stride: \u201cShe\u2019s not static,\u201d Self said. \u201cShe has a desire to move, and in her having this courage to be optimistic and move forward, I hope that is going to be inspiring to all people who encounter her to know that this is something that\u2019s also available to them \u2014 the ability to stride and to move forward,\u201d she continued.\n <\/p>\n
\n With thousands of people walking through Trafalgar Square everyday, in one of the most diverse cities in the world, Self wants the public to see themselves reflected back in \u201cLady in Blue.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cI want her just to become a Londoner at the end of the day,\u201d she said.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"London\u00a0\u2014\u00a0 A new sculpture has been unveiled in London\u2019s Trafalgar Square, where it will stand for the next…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":843234,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,229,88],"class_list":["post-843233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=843233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/843234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=843233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=843233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=843233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}