The Inaugural Commissions

Ecce Homo was the very first occupant of the Fourth Plinth. It was a white figure of Christ, standing at the front edge of the plinth, in just a loin cloth and hands bound behind his back; sitting on its head was a barbed-wire crown of thorns.

“I wanted to show him as an ordinary human being. Jesus was at the very least a political leader of an oppressed people and I think he has a place here in front of all these oversized imperial symbols.”  ~ Mark Wallinger

Regardless of History was a gigantic bronze sculpture depicting a head crushed under a book, with both bound to the plinth by the roots of a dead tree. The book over the head’s ear and the tree roots over the head’s eyes implied that mankind listens to history but cannot see the lessons. We carry on ‘regardless of history’.

'Regardless of History makes reference to the never-ending relationship between civilisation, knowledge and the forces of nature.' ~ Caption under the sculpture 

Rachel Whiteread’s (who is now a Dame) Monument closed out the launch of the project. The first woman to win the Turner Prize in 1993, she described her piece as “a pause... a quiet moment”. 
It was a cast made of resin in a reverse image of the plinth and made in two sections with a total weight of 11,000kg. 

With these first three commissions, the Fourth Plinth became the world’s most famous public art gallery and a new era in contemporary art had begun.