Mirror Lab, the unassuming storefront gallery in South Minneapolis on Cedar Avenue, is the kind of place where anything can happen. From music shows to gallery exhibitions plus performance art, cinema, puppetry and more, it’s a gathering space for offbeat, non-mainstream offerings. 

This past weekend, I was delighted to encounter Munir Kahar’s surrealist paintings and drawings before he heads to Indonesia for an artist residency. Kahar has been returning more often to his home country of late, first in 2019 for the first time since he moved to the United States in 2000, and again for 18 months beginning in 2022. Here in Minnesota, his creativity spans a number of spheres, from curating his “Beyond Wednesdays” experimental performance and music series to his work with Barebones, projects with the Art Shanty Projects, music performances and more. 

Mysterious creatures from the land and sea populate Kahar’s imaginative worlds, as do marvelous plants, floating eyeballs, fantastical architecture and forms that make a kind of dream sense. Lovingly deliberate in his mark-making, Kahar invites the viewer into a higher plane of existence, perhaps, or at least a place where things look quite strange and extraordinary. 

You can see the work through Jan. 25 at Mirror Lab, 3400 Cedar Ave. S., Mpls. (free). More information here.

After that, watch out for the next cool thing at Mirror Lab, “Tristan Tzara Was My Best Friend in Junior High” — an immersive dinner party/ritual designed by the avant garde poet Tristan Tzara. It was written by Savannah Reich, who is based in West Philadelphia but has ties here in the Twin Cities, in collaboration with Jon Cole and Lauren Anderson.

The original iteration of the show was developed at the former Bedlam Theater and now comes to life re-envisioned with a slightly different title. Reich has a sly sense of humor in her writing, finding the magic in both the mundane and the preposterous. Her frequent collaborator Jon Cole, one of Twin Cities’ most understated comic actors, performs with Sulia Altenberg in the show.

Thursday, Jan. 30, at 7 p.m. with light meal ($25) and Friday, Jan. 31, at 7:30 p.m. with full meal ($40) at Mirror Lab, plus two sold-out performances. 3400 Cedar Ave. S., Mpls. More information here.

Sheila Regan

Sheila Regan is a Twin Cities-based arts journalist. She writes MinnPost’s twice-weekly Artscape column. She can be reached at [email protected].

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