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 the town’s west facet. The following fee to alight above Tenth Avenue on the park’s outstanding plinth will likely be Dinosaur (2024), a hyperrealist aluminium sculpture of a pigeon by Iván Argote, the Bogotá-born, Paris-based artist.
“The title 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 at the moment,” Argote mentioned in an announcement. “The title additionally serves as reference to the dinosaur’s extinction. Like them, in the future we gained’t be round any extra, however maybe a remnant of humanity will dwell on—as pigeons do—at nighttime corners and gaps of future worlds. I really feel this sculpture might generate an uncanny feeling of attraction, seduction and concern among the many inhabitants of New York.”
Like many New Yorkers, pigeons will not be native to the area. They’re believed to have been dropped at the town within the seventeenth century by European settlers. Now, the town’s pigeon inhabitants is estimated to be bigger than its human inhabitants, with round 9 million birds in comparison with the practically 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 capacity 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, mentioned in an announcement. “His sculpture for the Excessive Line Plinth provides a important but humorous perspective to the continuing dialogue of public artwork.”
Critiques of typical 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 high modern 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, Outdated Tree (2023), will stay on view till September. Argote’s Dinosaur will likely be unveiled the next month and stay on view for 18 months.
