Dinosaur (statue)

Dinosaur (2024) is a colossal, hyper-realistic cast-aluminum sculpture of a feral pigeon by the Colombian artist Iván Argote, installed along New York City’s High Line in October 2024. At 16 ft (4.9 metres) tall, the sculpture of a feathered dinosaur, which is positioned on a 5 ft (1.5 metres) concrete plinth made to resemble urban sidewalks, stands 21 ft (6.4 metres) above 10th Avenue and 30th Street. It is the fourth recipient of the High Line Plinth commission, and will remain on display until the Spring of 2026. The youngest artist to receive the Plinth commission, Argote is also the first recipient from the Global South.

The sculpture of a pigeon measures approximately 20 ft (6.1 metres) in length and weighs close to 910 kilograms (2,000 pounds). With its monumental size and imposing position above New York City’s streets, it intends to reverse the typical power dynamic between pigeon and human, canonizing a familiar bird considered by many to be a lowly pest. Long concerned with challenging dominant political ideologies, Argote constructed Dinosaur to recast the idea of sculpture, a medium historically used to honor "great men, who all too often are neither honorable nor great." The sculpture was erected four years after its original proposal, in 2020, and has since become a prominent symbol of urban resilience and the oft-overlooked persistence of pigeons in man-made environments.