Meet “Dinosaur,” the 17 foot tall, two-ton aluminum pigeon. For the next year-and-a-half, its perch will be New York City’s High Line.
“Pigeons and birds, as we know, are what remains of dinosaurs,” said artist Iván Argote. “So, what if we transform a pigeon and we bring it to a scale of a Tyrannosaurus rex? Maybe we’re looking now [at] what pigeons see from us. Maybe we’re now the pigeons, and we’re the ones running away, and then they’re, like, the dominant ones.”
Argote says it’s about time pigeons get the hero treatment: ” ‘Dinosaur’ is, like, a very serious proposition of what could be a monument that doesn’t celebrate men, a war, a victory, but that celebrates a bird that’s been with us for, since, forever.”
But the project, like the bird itself, plays to mixed reviews. “People either love them or hate them, but still, it’s a very iconic animal of New York City,” Argote said.