place

The End (sculpture)

2020 sculpturesBritish sculptureFood and drink sculpturesOutdoor sculptures in LondonTrafalgar Square
Use British English from May 2023

The End (stylised in all caps) is a sculpture by British artist Heather Phillipson, which was installed on the fourth plinth at Trafalgar Square, London, from 2020 to 2022. The sculpture depicted a gigantic dollop of melting whipped cream, topped with a cherry, with a fly and a drone scaling its surface. The drone was fitted with a camera, which sent a live feed of the surrounding area to a dedicated website. Standing 9.4 metres, or nearly 31 feet, in height, the sculpture was the tallest installation to date as part of the Mayor of London's Fourth Plinth Programme, which features a rolling commission of public artworks.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article The End (sculpture) (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors).

The End (sculpture)
Trafalgar Square, City of Westminster Covent Garden

Geographical coordinates (GPS) Address Nearby Places
placeShow on map

Wikipedia: The End (sculpture)Continue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 51.50819 ° E -0.12869 °
placeShow on map

Address

Fourth Plinth

Trafalgar Square
SW1Y 5BJ City of Westminster, Covent Garden
England, United Kingdom
mapOpen on Google Maps

Share experience

Nearby Places

National Gallery
National Gallery

The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900.The Gallery is an exempt charity, and a non-departmental public body of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. Its collection belongs to the government on behalf of the British public, and entry to the main collection is free of charge. In 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic it attracted only 1,197,143 visitors, a drop of 50 per cent from 2019, but it still ranked eighth on the list of most-visited art museums in the world.Unlike comparable museums in continental Europe, the National Gallery was not formed by nationalising an existing royal or princely art collection. It came into being when the British government bought 38 paintings from the heirs of John Julius Angerstein in 1824. After that initial purchase, the Gallery was shaped mainly by its early directors, especially Charles Lock Eastlake, and by private donations, which now account for two-thirds of the collection. The collection is smaller than many European national galleries, but encyclopaedic in scope; most major developments in Western painting "from Giotto to Cézanne" are represented with important works. It used to be claimed that this was one of the few national galleries that had all its works on permanent exhibition, but this is no longer the case. The present building, the third to house the National Gallery, was designed by William Wilkins from 1832 to 1838. Only the facade onto Trafalgar Square remains essentially unchanged from this time, as the building has been expanded piecemeal throughout its history. Wilkins's building was often criticised for the perceived weaknesses of its design and for its lack of space; the latter problem led to the establishment of the Tate Gallery for British art in 1897. The Sainsbury Wing, a 1991 extension to the west by Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, is a significant example of Postmodernist architecture in Britain. The current Director of the National Gallery is Gabriele Finaldi.

Trafalgar Square
Trafalgar Square

Trafalgar Square ( trə-FAL-gər) is a public square in the City of Westminster, Central London, established in the early 19th century around the area formerly known as Charing Cross. At its centre a high column bearing a statue of Admiral Nelson commemorates his victory at Battle of Trafalgar, the British naval victory in the Napoleonic Wars over France and Spain that took place on 21 October 1805 off the coast of Cape Trafalgar. The site around Trafalgar Square had been a significant landmark since the 1200s. For centuries, distances measured from Charing Cross have served as location markers. The site of the present square formerly contained the elaborately designed, enclosed courtyard, King's Mews. After George IV moved the mews to Buckingham Palace, the area was redeveloped by John Nash, but progress was slow after his death, and the square did not open until 1844. The 169-foot (52 m) Nelson's Column at its centre is guarded by four lion statues. A number of commemorative statues and sculptures occupy the square, but the Fourth Plinth, left empty since 1840, has been host to contemporary art since 1999. Prominent buildings facing the square include the National Gallery, St Martin-in-the-Fields, Canada House, and South Africa House. The square has been used for community gatherings and political demonstrations, including Bloody Sunday in 1887, the culmination of the first Aldermaston March, anti-war protests, and campaigns against climate change. A Christmas tree has been donated to the square by Norway since 1947 and is erected for twelve days before and after Christmas Day. The square is a centre of annual celebrations on New Year's Eve. It was well known for its feral pigeons until their removal in the early 21st century.