Effra Quay & Isle of Effra (Albert Embankment), Tideway, London

Effra Quay & Isle of Effra (Albert Embankment), London: Richard Wentworth

Former Royal Doulton Head Office, Lambeth High Street

Detail of former Royal Doulton Building

Mural on Lambeth Walk

Main shaft site plan. Courtesy of Tideway and FLO

Indicative form of seating

Indicative form of larger seat

Plan of the interception site. Courtesy of Tideway and FLO

The two bronze letter plaques. Courtesy of the artist

Indicative layout of the letter. Courtesy of the artist

Year
Being fabricated

Client
fereday pollard for Tideway

Artist
Richard Wentworth CBE

Service
Commission Management

Location
Albert Embankment, London SE1

Permanent artworks for Effra Quay & Isle of Effra (Albert Embankment)

Richard Wentworth has been commissioned by Tideway to create an artwork for these two new areas of public realm within the River Thames.

At Effra Quay Richard Wentworth has produced a collection of cast bronze seating, mirroring the ceramic sanitaryware, formerly manufactured at the nearby Royal Doulton factory in Lambeth. The artist has remarked that the ceramic toilet is perhaps the leading invention of the 19th century, a kind of utilitarian ‘furniture’ which we have come to take for granted.

Borrowing from the language of ceramic production, Wentworth has worked with Lockbund Foundry to produce these “adjusted cast bronze replicants. Please take a seat.”

For the Isle of Effra, two panels are open letters to passers-by. One vertical, one horizontal, one ‘positive’, one ‘negative’, they derive from Richard Wentworth’s interest in the dropped notes which are often found blowing along London’s streets. For Wentworth, one of the pleasures of being a Londoner is the chance encounter that leads to a conversation.

“To anyone arriving at the riverside, the sheer volumne of water, its movement to and fro and the fall of light on its surface may provide a state of wonder - or possibly an unexpected conversation.”

The artist worked with Lockbund Sculpture Foundry to produce the artworks.

Effra Quay and Isle of Effra are now open to the public and the artworks will be installed later this year.

Richard Wentworth lives and works in London. He has played a leading role in New British Sculpture since the end of the 1970s. His work, encircling the notion of objects and their use as part of our day-to-day experiences, has altered the traditional definition of sculpture as well as photography. By transforming and manipulating industrial and/or found objects into works of art, Wentworth subverts their original function and extends our understanding of them by breaking the conventional system of classification. The sculptural arrangements play with the notion of ready-made and juxtaposition of objects that bear no relation to each other. Whereas in photography, as in the ongoing series Making Do and Getting By, Wentworth documents the everyday, paying attention to objects, occasional and involuntary geometries as well as uncanny situations that often go unnoticed.

“I don’t do projects. I just work and my work takes all sorts of different forms.”

— Richard Wentworth

Recent exhibitions have been held at Prats Nogueras Blanchard, Barcelona (2024); Prats Nogueras Blanchard, Girona (2024); NoguerasBlanchard, Madrid (2019); SWG3, Glasgow with Victoria Miguel (2018); NoguerasBlanchard, Barcelona (2017); Galerie Azzedine Alaïa, Paris, France (2017); Indianapolis Museum of Art, IN, USA (2015); Bold Tendencies, Peckham, London (2015); 'Black Maria' (in collaboration with Gruppe), Kings Cross, London (2013); Whitechapel Gallery, London (2010). His work is held in a number of national and international public and private collections.

For more information see: Richard Wentworth

For more information see:
www.tideway.london