Intervals
The Curve, Barbican
London EC2
Four stars

The curators of the 100 metre-long Curve gallery have over the years demonstrated an enviable nous in showing art which, while unashamedly avant garde, repeatedly captures the popular imagination.

That’s certainly the case in this show by Ayse Erkmen, an installation of 11 different large stage backdrops which are continuously raised and lowered in random sequence. 

That action, generated by an automated flying system, results in an intriguing opening of spaces in front of the viewer, who’s suddenly faced with a large new image while at the same time the space behind is closed off, prompting reflection as to the purpose of it all.

Erkmen designates these as meditative spaces. The viewer is ambushed in turn by a traditional velvet vaudeville curtain, a floral or geometric pattern, a Chinese garden or a reversed-out map of the artist’s native Turkey.

There’s a delightfully blistering and “splashy” watercolour of a Spanish hacienda’s huge hall and a “stained” cloth, not unlike a giant unfinished brass rubbing, which has the texture of the Turin shroud.

The spaces work as a continuum and are possibly an allegory of a journey, if not life itself.

The artist’s purpose seems to be to force the viewer — trapped between backdrops, either alone or in the company of others — to become the centre-stage protagonist in a narrative only hinted at by the backdrop. The imagination runs free as life becomes theatrical art.

The irregular movement of the backdrops demands alertness and anticipation in pursuing the spaces by timing exits and entrances and that in itself makes this an entertaining experience.

Appropriately, the last backdrop is of a large clock and time, it seems, is up. But perhaps not — you can travel back by ducking and diving, returning to that one backdrop that cast a spell on you.

Runs until January 5, opening times: (020) 7382-7043.