Guest Curator, Robin Klassnik,OBE
Staff On-Call Rooms, 2022
Whipps Cross Hospital
Vital Arts is delighted that Robin Klassnik, OBE, generously agreed to guest-curate a collection of artworks for permanent display in the On-Call Rooms at Whipps Cross Hospital. The suite of fourteen bedrooms, used by medics working overnight, now each benefit from the inclusion of an exceptional artwork. This project is part of Vital Arts’s ongoing support of clinical colleagues at Barts Health NHS Trust.
Working closely with Vital Arts, Klassnik developed a strategy that responds to the aim of providing interest and focus to these rooms, occupied by hardworking clinical staff. Klassnik selected a wide range of works by thirteen artists, combining previously existing works with some created especially for the project.
Klassnik is the Director and Founder of the non-profit contemporary art organisation Matt’s Gallery, which began in his artist’s studio in 1979. He graduated in Painting from Leicester College of Art in 1968 and has lived locally for 40 years and Whipps Cross is his local hospital.
The works selected for Whipps Cross include prints, photographs, collages and watercolours by contemporary artists, many of whom have shown at Matt’s Gallery over the years. The Gallery has a longstanding reputation as a pioneer of installation art, often working at large scale with new media to develop works that have gone on to attract Turner Prize nominations and become part of national collections.
