Fourth Plinth

Hans Haacke’s Gift Horse is the 10th and latest sculpture to rest on the Fourth Plinth, but it is not the first equestrian sculpture to gallop in this corner of Trafalgar Square. From 2012 to 2013, Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset’s bronze sculpture of a boy astride his rocking horse did then what Gift Horse is doing now — subvert the authoritarian decorum of the surrounding war memorial sculptures. The bronze boy seemingly at play was a witty counterpoint to Francis Chantrey’s 1843 equestrian statue of King George IV in the northeast corner of the square. The title of the piece, Powerless Structures, Fig 101, refers to the boy’s apparent innocence amidst hubristic symbols of greatness: nation and power.