A SCULPTURAL art installation enveloping the entire south façade of St Mary-le-Strand is illuminating winter nights in central London.
Unveiled on 19 November, the site-specific work, Decades, by the artist Louise Giovanelli, presents a composite image of a draped curtain.
By day, Decades gives passers by a reason to appreciate the church’s radically altered façade. By night, the monumental installation creates a shimmering backdrop to photographs. “Whenever I show my curtain paintings, people take selfies in front of them, because they see them as this backdrop to be a performer. I’m looking forward to this installation changing this geographical environment slightly, and I’m interested in how people will interact with it,” Ms Giovanelli says.
Set on the processional route between St Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Abbey, St Mary-le-Strand’s tercentenary was celebrated four years ago. It was built from 1714 to 1721, to the designs of the Roman Catholic architect James Gibbs. It was his first building on his return from studying in Rome. The Priest-in-Charge, Canon Peter Babington, says that it is the “finest 18th-century church in London”.
It was once known to cabbies as “St Mary in the way”, because it occupied an island surrounded by lanes of traffic in both directions. But the area was pedestrianised in a £22-million project, completed in 2022. The continuing “Jewel in the Strand” restoration and development project is positioning St Mary-le-Strand as the centrepiece of the Strand-Aldwych district. Last winter, the church hosted Congregation by the artist Es Devlin, stage designer to Taylor Swift, and the opening night was attended by the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan.
Supported by visible scaffolding, with cut-away apertures outlining the arched windows, Decades draws attention to the architectural details of St Mary’s, the first English Baroque church. The artwork also highlights the Grade I listed church’s exposure to air pollution, emphasising the columns’ two-tone stonework, an effect of long exposure to London smoke and traffic fumes. By revealing details of the alternating colour patterns of the columns, while also covering up areas with fabric, Giovanelli uses translucency to both reveal and reframe architectural elements.
The title Decades comes from a song by the Manchester band Joy Division, recorded in 1980, which the artist heard in Denton Working Men’s club. The title also refers to the 30 decades for which St Mary’s has been a landmark.
Playing on the duality of religious and performance-based congregation, Giovanelli uses a composite image of a shimmering curtain, typically found across working men’s clubs. The digitally augmented curtain mimics qualities of a pointillist painting. It also brings to mind the tradition of painted drapery in Italian Renaissance churches, and the motif of doorways as thresholds between the earthly and divine, which Gibbs would have seen on his study trip to Italy before returning to the UK to design St Mary-le-Strand.