The words ‘painting’ and ‘Richard Wentworth’ are not normally to be found in close proximity but this perpetually inventive and surprising artist has (yet again) confounded expectations and also pushed the parameters of the P-word with a special commission which he unveiled last night on the roof of Peckham’s multistory car park. Wentworth’s serpentine work, rendered in silvery aluminum-rich paint, snakes across the entire top level and adjoining lower tier of this brutalist South London landmark which, for the past seven years has hosted a summer programme commissioned by the not-for-profit organisation Bold Tendencies. Everyone present agreed that the work amply lived up to its title of Agora—the ancient Greek term for open assembly space—in its ability simultaneously to syncopate the hordes of spectators and also reflect the sky.
Wentworth also surprised those who have always associated him with North London’s Caledonian Road—his long-term home and constant source of inspiration—by revealing that his first studio was in fact the nearby concrete church in Southwark Park, which is now Dilston Grove Art Gallery. So perhaps it wasn't only William Blake who was treated to visions of angels in Peckham Rye…