French sculptor Iván Argote has recently unveiled a new public art piece at the High Line, New York City. Dinosaur, the 21-foot tall sculpture portrays a curiosity that lives in big cities such as New York, the often ignored city pigeon. Around the world, pigeons were once domesticated as postal services, pets and even sporting animals. However, as time progressed and technology developed, pigeons have slowly been left behind as companion animals. Yet, although they have been forgotten as pets, pigeons never had the chance to de-domesticate and still live in close proximity to human beings. Hence, today they find themselves in big cities, scrounging for scraps and regarded as nothing more than pests.
People’s disregard for pigeons has led to people persecuting them, causing them harm and even cruelly murdering them without so much of a second thought. This is why the sculpture was made 21 feet tall, highlighting the grandeur of pigeon life so that they no longer become dismissible. With the piece’s title, Argote also reveals their ties to their grand ancestors, the dinosaurs, showing how magnificent the species is. That is how the piece campaigns for more human treatment of city pigeons worldwide, aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of Life on Land.
Reflecting on the sculpture and today’s harrowing reality filled with multiple anxieties from war and climate change, Argote said that the sculpture’s “Name also serves as a reference to the dinosaur’s extinction. Like them, one day we won’t be around anymore, but perhaps a remnant of humanity will live on—as pigeons do—in the dark corners and gaps of future worlds.”
Iván Argote’s Dinosaur is a towering tribute to the overlooked resilience and unique history of city pigeons. It urges viewers in New York City and the world to reconsider their relationship with these often-dismissed urban dwellers. By emphasizing their lineage as descendants of dinosaurs, Argote elevates pigeons from "pests" to symbols of survival, adaptability and coexistence.
Find out more about Dinosaur and other pieces by Iván Argote on his website www.ivanargote.com or Instagram @ivan_argote.