HARLEM— If the stream of breaking news coming out of the current administration has you sullen, this West Harlem gallery wants you laugh it off.
Gitler & ____, the roughly 3-year-old gallery at 3629 Broadway, is auctioning off all the works featured in “Laugh Track” a pop art-inspired exhibition designed to get guests to chuckle at the “current political climate.”
While many of the pieces displayed in the exhibit — which has been up for about month and is the brainchild of artist Jason Covert — was conceived before Trump declared his candidacy, visitors would be hard-pressed not to notice its political undertones.
"It feels more relevant now because everyone is so tense,” gallery owner Avi Gitler explained of the show. The works will be auctioned off Tuesday, the final day of the installation.
For instance, a piece called "Tweet Tweet Boom" shows a blue bird landing on a red button.
While it’s supposed to represent the playfulness of war, Trump’s Twitter fingers setting off a nuclear disaster is not a far-fetched interpretation, Gitler explained.
“Without the tweets, I wouldn’t be here,” Trump told The Financial Times in April.
The gallery usually hosts traditional artwork, he added, and Covert is known for more sobering pieces.
“We just wanted something that was a bit lighter,” Gitler noted.
Covert himself makes an appearance in the exhibition on screen laughing maniacally — think Heath Ledger’s Joker character in “The Dark Knight” — with the end of video punctuated by a pie in the face.
Hillary Clinton also shows up in a brightly colored painting included in “The Holy Trinity of Iconic Laughs,” guffawing next to the likes of a grinning Tom Cruise and a beaming Julie Roberts.
The gallery will sell all the pieces Tuesday. It will be open from 2 to 7 p.m.
