“Rare Specimen” At The Arsenal Gallery (& Cat Stevens)

The above is Wes Lang'S "The only shit that's left behind" a 2005 9acrylic on canvas

On March 9, 2006, the Rare Specimen: The Natural History Museum Show opened in the Arsenal Gallery. This is the building where I work so it was available to all the workers as well as those specially invited through whatever channels of importance and relevance. I was todl a few days ago that there were pictures of me at this event and I had completely fogotten about attending, thus the reason I have this damn blog thing in the fisrt place haha. So, below is the Press Release explaining the Show and below are the pictures of the event itself and some of the artwork.

The Press Release:

On view March 9 – April 12, 2006 at the Arsenal Gallery in Central Park, Rare Specimen: The Natural History Museum Show features works by nine world-renowned and emerging contemporary artists: Mark Dion, Walton Ford, Alexis Rockman, Steve Mumford, Karin Weiner, Wes Lang, Jeff Hoppa, Emilie Clark and Nicole Tschampel. Exploring natural history themes, the artists’ subjects include dinosaurs, prehistoric mammals, gems and geology, birds, carnivorous plants, taxidermy, anthropology, fossils and skeletons, taxonomy and collecting, and man’s relationship to the natural world. Often using scientific information as the basis for their art, these artists offer a highly personal interpretation and often playfully subversive view of natural history. (Below you can see the painting that Josh and I actually really really liked. I just stared at that yellow light in the middle for a while. HAHA.)

The exhibition is staged in the historic Arsenal building, which was the first home of the American Museum of Natural History from 1869 to 1877 before it moved to its current home on Manhattan’s West Side. Rare Specimen, curated by Clare Weiss, is on view in the same gallery that once housed the museum’s displays.

The above is Wes Lang'a "High Times". A 2005 graphite on paper.

Can you see me in the picture below? Where's Waldo is now Where's Karean haha. Anyway, below you are seeing my introduction to the artist that I wrote about in a previous blog. Her name is Katerina Lanfranco. She was the artist who created the "Ursus Horribilis" show. You can read about her and her vision in my ""Ursus Horribilis" by Katerina Lanfranco (& Holly Brook)" Entry!

Funding for Rare Specimen was provided by WABC-TV and The Explorers Club.

The above is Karin Weiner's "Big Rock Candy Moountain", a 2006 collage

The above peice a work by Karen Weiner called Butterfly Box

The Arsenal Gallery is dedicated to examining themes of nature, urban space, wildlife, New York City parks, and park history. It is located on the third floor of the NYC Parks & Recreation headquarters, in Central Park, on Fifth Avenue at 64th Street. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Wednesday evenings until 8:00 p.m. Admission is free.

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Cat Stevens…Now, this is one colorful character. The singer was born Steven Demetre Georgiou to a Swedish mother and a Greek Cypriot father in London. In the 1970s he recorded a succession of popular albums, including Tea for the Tillerman, Catch Bull at Four and Teaser and the Firecat. There is something about Cat Stevens that has always made me think of the peace movement in the 60s/70s. Something about his voice and soft-spoken nature that always calms me when I hear him. His lyrics are deeply rooted in peace and yet there is simplicity about his music.

In 1977, he converted to Islam, changing his name to Yusuf Islam, after a near-death experience where he almost drowned in Malibu. After this conversion, he gave up recording and performing for 17 years, but issued an Islamic album in 1995 and appeared in concert in Sarajevo in 1997. He has since been denied access to the US "on national security grounds".

He became a teacher and an advocate for his religion, founding a Muslim school in London in 1983. In July 2000, he was denied entry to Israel amid reports that he had donated tens of thousands of dollars to militant Palestinian group Hamas. It is because of this rumor that he was placed on a “Watch List.”

In a statement released by his record label Universal Music at the time, he said: "I want to make sure that people are aware that I've never ever knowingly supported any terrorist groups past, present or future." Unfortunately, he is still not permitted to enter the United States and actually caused a stir in the news in 2005 when attempted to do so.

One of the things that truly upsets me about this whole thing is that Yusuf Islam is most certainly a fundamentalist Muslim, whose views are radical enough to set him at odds with the great majority of the world's Islamic adherents, and they are no better expressed than in his comments on his own field of expression: music. How do you go from being a huge musician to accepting a religion where that is all but forbidden.

Wahhabism, the state religion in Saudi Arabia, and the inspirer of al Qaeda, is especially known for its hatred of music. In Wahhabi theology, all music except for drum accompaniment to religious chanting is haram, or forbidden. For anybody who has had contact with Muslim civilization, this is a fairly shocking bit of information, since music is one of the great glories of Islamic culture.

Yusuf Islam has demonstrated his sympathy for this posture on several occasions. Above all, he is careful to point out his caution about bucking the Wahhabis in this realm. In 1997, he released an album titled I Have No Cannons That Roar, dedicated, he said, to the cause of the Bosnian Muslims. The CD is a very conservative approach. You only hear Steven’s voice, a slight choral accompaniment and drums. He has made a very minimalist use of instruments and even those are unheard of in some Islamic religions. It’s really just a shame.

I do not know what to tell you about him now, but the man he used to be back in the 70’s was special. In the early years, he began to perform his songs in coffee houses and pubs. He was “found” in 1966 at age 18 by manager/producer Mike Hurst. In the first two years he was basically what we would now consider a pop star. He then caught tuberculosis and this is where he began meditating and writing about different religions.

A songs you might be surprised to know he wrote and sang first is “The First Cut Is the Deepest, sung most recently by Sheryl “I kinda suck” Crow and Rod Stewart. Tea for the Tillerman, cover seen to the left, was in Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 listing of the ""500 Greatest Albums of All Time". His signature voice sung of peace, love and happiness, and opposition to war. I am sad to think that he might never sing to us again.