Richard Wentworth

The Light of Day, 2011

Digital prints, antiqued mirror, walnut boxes and nails
St Bartholomew’s Hospital

Richard Wentworth was given access to the museum collection held by Barts to create an installation depicting archival images of the old Pathology Museum, instruments for measuring radium, the manufacturing of ointment, and machines to extract radioactive gas.  Even the image of filing cabinets, once intended to convey state-of-the-art information management, takes on an air of nostalgia today in our paperless electronic age.  Similarly, Wentworth makes a feature of large metal nails which also signal a technology of a previous era.

These atmospheric images, with glimpses of parquet floors, glazed tiled walls, wooden balustrades, (echoed in the heavy wooden frames surrounding each piece), impart a strong flavour of the history of Barts within the new building, while the inclusion of angled mirror suggests the idea of reflection back in time and into the future.

“Very often the choice of hospital art is rather bland but we found the art work that we saw in the new building very innovative and thought provoking. These artworks catch the eye of the patients, distract and interest them.”

Margaret Thorn League of Nurses

This commission has been supported by Rahere Association

Photography by Owen Richards