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.

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.

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