Robert Sandler

Kai Matsumiya is pleased to present the debut solo exhibition Ha! Ah! by Robert Sandler (b. 1991).

The clowns in Ha! Ah! are doing their very best. Arms and heads disappear through one hole only to appear out of another, like a trompe l'oeil trying too hard. There are a lot of letters in the gallery. A reinterpreted alphabet-dress, worn by Lucille Ball in the ’50s television series I Love Lucy, greets the guests. A mural of bugs, “Equation With One Unknown,” spans 50 feet across the right side of the gallery. Each bug ports a letter. Have they made any words? A lone pair of headphones invite the viewer to enjoy a musical rendition of Edvard Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King.” The performers laugh while singing.

A small, graceful pewter statuette of a pooping dog hangs on the main display wall dividing the two gallery rooms. On the floor, a toy car, “Clown Car,” advertises an oversize billboard larger than itself with the psychological advice “Every fantasy states a problem and offers a solution.” And as indeed every fantasy states a problem and offers a solution, the advertisement, like a one-way street sign, leads the viewer swerving into the second room with the film work “Exodus.”

Turn right.

What is living without invariable fail­ure?

Robert Sandler (b. 1991, Baltimore, MD) holds an MFA in painting from the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts, Bard College. He lives and works in New York.