Artist Shai Azoulay Falls Asleep at the Canvas

If the sleep of reason creates monsters, does the sleep of creativity create … paintings? Here, in Shai Azoulay’s Dream — an MFA-appropriate version of the Brothers Grimm’s “The Elves and the Shoemaker” — an artist snoozes in his atelier while little paint sprites (pigment figments?) amass around a pristine canvas. Whether they’re about to pounce or leave it in a state of Malevichean whiteness is up in the air, but let’s say they go to town. After all, the cold is making everyone a little sleepy, and the idea of waking up to a finished spreadsheet (or legal brief, or blog post) is too good a fantasy to resist. On view at Participant Inc. through December 21.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7t8HLrayrnV6YvK57kWlncWdhZnyivtOiqq2Xo52uqqvAs6aupJGurKety6WqmJmjobJvtNOmow%3D%3D