The different sculptures in this new series by Iván Argote represent pigeons adopting anthropised postures and attitudes within different architectural structures. They move easily within a city that they have appropriated.
Pigeons, marginalized figures of public space, are recurrent protagonists in Iván Argote's work. In 2011, he shot the short film The Pigeon, in which a stuffed pigeon is seen amidst live ones, flapping about on a Parisian pavement. By choosing pigeons as his subject, the artist rehabilitates and personifies these animals, which are characteristic of the urban landscape and are often disparagingly referred to as 'flying rats'. Moreover, these pigeon figures with their twisted limbs refer to another key theme in the artist's work, that of the antipodes. In ancient Greek, the word 'antipodos' literally means 'with opposite feet'. In the Middle Ages, the term 'antipode' was used by scholars to designate people living in distant lands whose habits were foreign to Westerners. Iván Argote has thus produced several anthropomorphic sculptures with opposite feet, adopting haughty figures, which formulate a call to assume one's differences with pride.