Illuminated River review, Leo Villareal, the Thames, London: a bit of a damp squib

I do not commute by boat. One of the Telegraph arts editors does, but I suspect she’s a rarity. This made me wonder, during Wednesday’s launch of Illuminated River, a giant public artwork on the bridges across the Thames: for whose eyes, standing where, has this project been designed?

Illuminated River is a semi-permanent installation of “dynamic light art”, currently in four parts. By 2022, that number may reach “up to 15”. Each of the bridges in central London, from Tower in the east to Albert in the west, is lit up by networks of LEDs, designed by the American artist Leo Villareal. If the project reaches its full extent – and its caution may be due to its reliance on private funds – it will become the “longest” work of public art in the world.

With only four bridges aglow so far – London, Cannon St, Southwark, Millennium – the critic’s sample size is thin, but the first three are compliantly uniform. Soft colours, fuschias and lavenders, are spread across each structure; they dapple slowly along the span as the river lies black beneath. By contrast, the Millennium Bridge, originally designed by Norman Foster to resemble a “blade of light”, has sharpened up: a streak of cold white gives definition to the sinuous design.

Simple premise, smart technology. The existing municipal lights on these bridges were old and weak, and spilled into the water enough to disturb the fish and other fauna within. Villareal’s LEDs, which will replace the old lights for at least a decade, eliminate most of that pollution, and are more efficient by far. (The Bay Lights, his similar ongoing project on San Francisco’s giant Bay Bridge, costs around $4 an hour to run.)

Some of the claims on the artistic side seem just as impressive, if a little odd. At four-and-a-half nautical miles, the artwork claims a record length, but that's counting the long, empty stretches between bridges. (From Vauxhall Bridge, Grosvenor isn’t even visible.) The organisers also say that Illuminated River “will be seen over 137 mil-lion times each year”. How can that figure take stock of millions of Londoners’ changing routines?

Moreover: how should we “see” this work? Judging from Wednesday night, the best view of Illuminated River is from either the air – the photo-call was on top of Tower Bridge – or the water, passing squarely under one bridge after the next. Those are not everyday places to be. On land, by contrast, neither bank is easily passable all the way from east to west; stand on a bridge instead, and its lights will be hidden below your feet. If the Thames is becoming a gallery, the best way to “see” its works as a group seems to be one that few can usefully take.

Illuminated River, like a lot of public art, wants only to be harmless, and it lights up the Thames in an eco-friendly and visually pleasant way. But Villareal’s design feels as though it’s been strangled by politeness. So soft are these colours, so quietly their patterns shift. I suspect that the most prominent work of public art in London will become its most invisible. You’ll walk past it once, twice, ten times, and – like magic – you’ll no longer see it at all.

The first stage of Illuminated River is now on display