Events of Yesteryear: strings & pigeons

9/19/2011

architecture, big rose, Bird, Columbidae, Contemporary art, Denver art, Denver Museum of Contemporary Art, distance training, domicile caretaker, flying, Fred Sandback, geographic relationship, institution, interactive pigeon project, Jon Rubin, MCA, minimal sculpture, monkey, multi disciplinary artist, Museum, perceived space, photography, pigeon, pigeon coop, pigeon flying, Rubin pigeons, site specific project, social relationship, storybook, strings, Thinking About Flying, visitor, yarn installations, yarn sculptures

This past weekend, I went to the Denver Museum of Contemporary Art with my sister and friend/fellow Hi.Lite.Head blogger Uyangart. I thought I would share a bit about our very ‘interactive’ adventures – starting with Fred Sandback’s yarn sculptures to artist Joh Rubin’s awesome project called Thinking About Flying. Upon entrance, we were exposed to Sandback’s sculptures which immersed the entire building in minute gestures of colored yarns, strung taut to bifurcate the spacious rooms and create shapes; triangles, diagonals, verticals — articulating such monumental ideas about how we perceive and experience space. In every room, the acrylic yarns shone a light on the architectural digest of the museum with its minimal presence. The works were created with nothing but strings, and as bare and refined as it is materially possible, the strings managed to define, cut, mold, shape, re-orient, and divide its surrounding space and even viewers alike. Although commendable and interesting in concept matter, Sandback’s installations were not a personal favorite of mine over Jon Rubin’s interactive pigeons.

“Rubin is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work explores the social dynamics of public places and the idiosyncrasies of individual and group behavior”. His site specific project – Thinking About Flying – for the MCA aims to catalyze a more direct relationship between the institution and its visitors. The project was provided with a group of homing pigeons to be cared for by the museum and trained by its visitors. We were invited to participate by taking home a pigeon in a carrying case and releasing the pigeon to fly back to its coop on the museum’s roof within 24 hours. The pigeons are apparently able to travel distances to over 400 miles and back due to their extensive distance training.

By sharing in the responsibility of caring for the pigeons, the personal and collective stake in the ongoing life of the artwork is initiated. At once poetic and practical, the temporary placement of the pigeons in visitors’ homes expands not only the artwork, but also the space of the museum itself. The traditional notion of an art museum is inverted as domestic spaces perform the function of temporary exhibition sites and the institutional space is cast as a domicile and caretaker. In this way the work maps the social and geographic relationship between the institution and its constituent audience.

Curious about the pigeons, three of us decided to engage in the project. The check-out process was fairly simple, we were required to fill out a short information sheet before selecting our pigeons from the coop. My sister chose ‘Big Rose’, a giant pigeon, quite frisky but beautiful in color, while my friend chose ‘Monkey’, a medium-sized pigeon, restless and average in color. The two were then enclosed in an elegant cardboard box, handed to us with spec sheets and all. We stepped into the museum as mere visitors and stepped out as pet owners. I was pretty skeptical at first, or more fearful I suppose, about whether the birds would really be able to fly back since I had already witnessed a few light showers earlier. The spec sheet also indicated that the pigeons are to be released 3 hours before nightfall and not during a thunderstorm, so we planned on releasing the birds as soon as we came home. Big Rose became very antsy towards the end, and when we finally opened his box at around 5pm, he came out and briefly stood on my balcony, glanced into the far sight of the sky, then flew off in an instant. So quick that I was not able to capture a focused image, only a blurry shot of his pre-flight momentum.

It’s funny how such a strange project can leave you with a lasting impact. I was a bit saddened when Big Rose left, his flight became a poetic gesture to me, almost symbolic, like a momentum for my coming endeavors. And even just the temporary existence of the pigeon on my balcony, share a context of my home, made me feel as though a small part of the museum had been transported with me and into my personal environment.

Here is a photo storybook of our day documented by Uyangart, she did a great job profiling the outstanding architecture of the museum and pigeon release. Thank you for the wonderful photographs!