𝘈𝘯𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘜𝘯𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘔𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘤, 𝘝𝘰𝘭𝘶𝘮𝘦 1 brings together an imagined archive of bands and musicians, each with their own histories, recordings, and visual worlds. For this project, artist and musician Sonny Smith (
@sunnyandthesunsets ) invited artists to create album covers for these fictional acts, and collected fictional accounts of the bands in a zine (on sale for $10 at the museum), blurring the line between music history and storytelling. Here’s an excerpt:
𝗕𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗛𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗟𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗧: 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗛𝗘𝗔𝗗𝗟𝗘𝗦𝗦 𝗠𝗔𝗡
Album artwork by Cate White (
@catewhite ), Molly Rea, Squeak Carnwath (
@squeakcarnwath ), Shannon Shaw (
@shannonshaw ), and Sonny Smith (
@sunnyandthesunsets ).
“Sometimes called ‘The Man With No Head,’ ‘The Headless Singer,’ or ‘Non-Cabeza’ in Mexico, Umar Mubarak was a Sudanese musician born near the Nile River who had no head. At thirty, he worked as an assistant gardener on the estate of a millionaire, keeping mostly to himself in a small shed on the edge of the property. It was there that the millionaire’s wife first heard him play tambor and discovered the poems he kept in a small notebook beside a vase and a rug. Convinced his music belonged to the world beyond the garden walls, she helped arrange his first recording session, which became 𝘚𝘰𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘏𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘔𝘢𝘯.
Against all expectations, the records made him famous.
Children hid their heads inside their shirts and sang his songs in the streets, while grown men privately wished they too had no head. For two decades, Mubarak traveled the world making music, drinking wine, falling in love, and moving through life ‘intact,’ as Smith writes, ‘because of course, he had no head to lose.’”
Join us this Sunday, May 17th from 4-7PM for a closing celebration of the show, featuring live performances by Chris Cohen and Rhinestone Sunsets (aka the Fuckaroos aka Rhinestone Barbarians), with food and wine pop-ups by
@loba.earth and
@rotoscopewine . Free and open to all!
