New Yorkers could not all agree on which city critter is the extra becoming image for his or her metropolis—the resilient rat, the nuke-proof cockroach or the scrappy pigeon—however the latter could quickly have an edge within the type of a 16ft-tall monument perched atop the Excessive Line elevated park on town’s west aspect. The following fee to alight above Tenth Avenue on the park’s outstanding plinth can be Dinosaur (2024), a hyperrealist aluminium sculpture of a pigeon by Iván Argote, the Bogotá-born, Paris-based artist.
“The identify Dinosaur makes reference to the sculpture’s scale and to the pigeon’s ancestors who thousands and thousands of years in the past dominated the globe, as we people do immediately,” Argote stated in an announcement. “The identify additionally serves as reference to the dinosaur’s extinction. Like them, at some point we received’t be round any extra, however maybe a remnant of humanity will stay on—as pigeons do—at the hours of darkness corners and gaps of future worlds. I really feel this sculpture might generate an uncanny feeling of attraction, seduction and worry among the many inhabitants of New York.”
Like many New Yorkers, pigeons are usually not native to the area. They’re believed to have been dropped at town within the seventeenth century by European settlers. Now, town’s pigeon inhabitants is estimated to be bigger than its human inhabitants, with round 9 million birds in comparison with the almost eight million individuals residing within the metropolis.
Iván Argote, Dinosaur, 2024 (rendering). A Excessive Line Plinth fee. On view October 2024-spring 2026. Picture courtesy of the artist and the Excessive Line.
“Iván has an enthralling skill as an artist to take one thing acquainted and make us think about it anew in profound methods,” Cecilia Alemani, the director and chief curator of Excessive Line Artwork, stated in an announcement. “His sculpture for the Excessive Line Plinth provides a crucial but humorous perspective to the continuing dialogue of public artwork.”
Critiques of standard monuments and public artwork—and a passion for pigeons—recur all through Argote’s work, which has included documenting the elimination of a statue of French colonial administrator Joseph Gallieni from a public plaza in Paris to planters made to resemble historic monuments. When he was nominated for France’s prime up to date artwork prize, the Prix Marcel Duchamp, in 2022, Argote’s set up on the Centre Pompidou featured movies of monuments being eliminated and disassembled projected in a room strewn with seemingly toppled obelisks.
Argote’s outstanding pigeon would be the fourth Excessive Line Plinth fee, following works by Pamela Rosenkranz, Simone Leigh and Sam Durant. Rosenkranz’s sculpture of a neon-pink tree, Previous Tree (2023), will stay on view till September. Argote’s Dinosaur can be unveiled the next month and stay on view for 18 months.
