Interval presents The Shudder, a group exhibition conceived by Jane Bustin, featuring works by Jane Bustin, Lewis Brander, Edwina Leapman, Gal Schindler and Richard Serra, alongside ancient and historical sculptural works dating from 2000 BC and the 14th and 18th centuries. The exhibition is accompanied by a text by curator and writer Andrew Renton.
The exhibition explores the relationships between artists and artworks, past and present, and the unspoken language that passes between them through shared influences, connections, ideas and experiences. At its centre is the notion of the shudder: a spontaneous bodily response to an overwhelming encounter between the self and the Other, whether a work of art, a piece of music, the written word or another person.
The art object, an assemblage of materials such as paint, cloth, wood, clay, metal and pigment, has the capacity to provoke this physical response through an encounter with the sublime. The artworks become more than their material components, giving rise to an experience beyond conscious thought, language or logical intention.
As Andrew Renton suggests in his accompanying text, "the shudder represents a moment that resists interpretation, in which the object becomes momentarily unseeable and unknowable. It involves a yielding of the self at the moment of perception, an experience that may only be recognised once it has passed".
The Shudder considers how artworks, across different periods and materials, might evoke a sensory, primordial world: an appreciation and understanding beyond words.
In collaboration with Annely Juda, Art Ancient, Copperfield London, Cristea Roberts and Vardaxoglou.