The End (4) - 2 August 2020

Would it be a metaphor for the incipient End Times, by any chance? Please enlighten, oh wise one.

This is some of the blurb which accompanied the unveiling of the piece. Frankly, although I might enjoy a work, I have little patience for such ramblings and 99 times out of a hundred can see little if any connection between the artist's purported intent which, perhaps, they should not have to explain and what I see before my eyes.

'THE END is the cherry on the cream. And, on top of the cherry and the cream, the parasites.'

Trafalgar Square sees extremes of shared experience, from commemorations and celebrations to mass protests. This sculpture attempts to address the specific physical context of the square, whilst considering a broader ideological one. How do we negotiate congregation, the intimacy of personal experience, broadcast and surveillance in one space? THE END represents exuberance and unease. Topped with a giant, unstable load, the plinth becomes a monument to hubris and impending collapse. The surrounding architecture and its population are participants in a mis-scaled landscape, one that magnifies the banal, and our cohabitation with other lifeforms, to apocalyptic proportions.