Rob Scher Writes

Among other things, the father of sleep was known to carry around a horn filled with opium.

Was the tryptophan outbreak of 1989 a result of genetic engineering gone bad, or was tryptophan itself to blame?

In Rithika Merchant’s “The Intruder” (Sleep Paralysis), the rooted appendages of a tree-like creature wrap themselves around a body. It’s a familiar enough nightmare scene, echoing the Morbid Anatomy Museum’s latest exhibition, “Opus Hypnagogia: Sacred Spaces of the Visionary and Vernacu…

The entranced crowd sits tightly packed around a keyboard in the main hall of the American Folk Art Museum. Behind the keyboard, a man in a trinket-laden black beret seamlessly moves from regaling the audience with stories to tinkling with the keys of his Korg. The natural rhythm of his speech, a de…

The reverberated twang of discordant keys and a slow, walking bass line sound, as an image of a black hand holding a spray can moves effortlessly across a wall, drawing lines that form letters, creating words: “PLUSH·SAFE” HE THINK. The looping projection—old footage of Brooklyn-born artist J…