“Anri Sala: Answer Me”

Born in Albania and based in Berlin, Sala represented France in the 2013 Venice Biennale and has made frequent appearances in major museums throughout the world. The glaring exception, however, has been New York, an oversight the New Museum rectifies in this survey of the artist’s video installations from the past decade or so. Sala eschews narrative and even language, preferring instead to use music in unconventional ways to evoke a sense of mood that takes on the qualities of a story, albeit one that doesn’t seem to go anywhere. In one piece, for example, a  lone man on the outskirts of an unnamed town plays the Clash’s “Should I Stay Or Should I Go” on a music box, producing a sound both circus-like and surreal. Another video features two pianists discordantly playing a composition by Ravel as they attempt to synch their performances without much success. Tinged with existential pathos, Sala’s work employs music to comment on the human condition.