The newest sculpture to grace New York City High line is a monumental tribute to an unlikely creature.
High above 10th Avenue, a hyper-realistic pigeon stops to rest in the outdoor pavilion. The work of artist Ivan Argute (previously) the hand-painted, aluminum bird is titled ‘Dinosaur’ and towers 20 feet in the air, rivaling the enormous proportions of some of its ancestors.
Argote is known for questioning the role of monuments and statues, especially as they relate to colonial histories and power imbalances. For this work, he turns the human-animal relationship and notions of migration and value upside down, as the common street bird is vaulted into a glorified figure, looking down on pedestrians and motorists. The artist says in a statement:
The name “Dinosaur” refers to the scale of the statue and to the ancestors of the pigeon who dominated the world millions of years ago, as we humans do today… the name also serves as a reference to the extinction of the dinosaur. Like them, we will one day be gone, but perhaps a remnant of humanity will live on – as doves do – in the dark nooks and crannies of future worlds.
Despite their ubiquity in North American cities, pigeons are not native to the continent. The birds were initially brought from Europe as a farm animal and food source, but when they escaped into the wild they grew into the scavenging herds they are today. No longer domesticated and not entirely wild, pigeons occupy a unique position.
Argote’s work is a cheeky nod to the birds and suggests that they deserve more appreciation than some of the figures we have collectively honored in the past. Standing tall and confident on a concrete base, the sculpture also reminds us that ‘everyone is an immigrant’. a statement say. “Even the pigeon, a fixture in New York, initially migrated here and made the city their home, as did millions of other ‘native’ New Yorkers.”
‘Dinosaurus’ will be on display all spring. Find more from Argote at Instagram.
