Iván Argote’s Giant Pigeon to Alight on New York’s High Line

The 16-foot-tall winged-rat will watch over New York like Batman watches over Gotham. Argote thinks the work could instil New Yorkers with feelings of 'attraction, seduction, and fear'.

The next High Line Plinth Commission will be Iván Argote's hyperreal aluminium sculpture of a pigeon. The work, titled Dinosaur, will be installed at the intersection of 10th Avenue and 30th Streets in October and remain on view for 18 months.

'The name Dinosaur makes reference to the sculpture's scale and to the pigeon's ancestors who millions of years ago dominated the globe, as we humans do today,' Argote said in a statement.

'The name also serves as reference to the dinosaur's extinction. Like them, one day we won't be around any more, but perhaps a remnant of humanity will live on—as pigeons do—in the dark corners and gaps of future worlds. I feel this sculpture could generate an uncanny feeling of attraction, seduction, and fear among the inhabitants of New York.'

Dinosaur was one of 80 proposals submitted for the High Line Plinth in 2020. It is the fourth to be commissioned following Simone Leigh's Brick House (2019), Sam Durant's Untitled (drone) (2021), and Pamela Rosenkranz's Old Tree (2023).

Iván Argote was born in 1983 in Bogotá, Colombia, and now lives and works in Paris, France. He was nominated for France's Marcel Duchamp prize in 2022.

Argote exhibited the anti-monument Descanso, a fallen replica of the Christopher Columbus statue in Madrid's Plaza Colón, in Stranieri Ovunque — Foreigners Everywhere, the 60th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale.

'Iván has a charming ability as an artist to take something familiar and make us consider it anew in profound ways,' said High Line Art director Cecilia Alemani. 'His sculpture for the High Line Plinth adds a critical yet funny perspective to the ongoing dialogue of public art.'

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by The High Line (@highlinenyc)

Initial reactions to Dinosaur's selection have been favourable, but we're yet to learn how New York's pigeons will react. On Instagram, artist and writer Paul D'Agostino speculated that 'they'll engage in ample mark-making in a certain whiteish, gesso-y medium.'

Argote is looking forward to introducing his sculpture to local birds.

'I dream about the moment when [a] pigeon's going to stand up on [Dinosaur's] head,' he told New York Magazine. 'I think that would be really an accomplishment in my life.' —[O]