Skeletons

This extraordinary, precise, powerfully personal and historically valuable show at the Wellcome Collection is by some distance the most interesting and best presented exhibition currently to be seen in London – and perhaps the best exhibition of the year so far. It is deceptively simple in execution. Twenty-six skeletons (borrowed from the Museum of London's vast collection) have been laid out in what amount to open coffins, illustrated by plaques explaining where the bones have been recovered from and what the skeleton can tell you about the life of the deceased. It's an excellent, sober way of looking at the hardships ordinary Londoners have suffered over the years, with these anonymous bones given real pathos by the sombre presentation and careful descriptions of the afflictions they experienced. Some of the younger skeletons especially are profoundly moving – a youthful skull scarred by syphilis and the shards of bone left by a 22-week foetus. Colour comes from the large wall-mounted photographs of the mundane contemporary locations of these lost burial grounds but this is a suitably minimalist treatment of a complex subject, and a lesson in how to get the most meaning out of limited but powerful artefacts. (PW)