Birds Everywhere

Projekt No.1, 1969. Cover art by Hubert Hilscher (from Pattern and Shape)

Animals and Humans: What is Art, What is Beauty?

The topic and works of the Grand Palais' current exhibition seem worth a visit. Displayed slightly lower for the child in all of us, the exhibit goes over the European art scene's take on animals. In the words of the curator Emmanuelle Héran, it gathers all art depicting animals and touches upon a variety of ideas -- the cultural norms of beauty (why is a toad ugly and a horse honorable?), or the role human historical developments since the 16th c. had on our relationship to animals (for instance if during the colonial years the endless discovery of new species meant animals were symbols of bountiful imagination, today the predicament of their extinction is underlying all of their artistic portrayals). There's art, aesthetic theory, human and natural history to produce this:

Beauté animale : présentation de l'exposition by Rmn-Grand_Palais

And my favorite little creatures - birds - are represented by the iconic Dodo, whose myth is complexified here:

La véritable histoire du Dodo by Rmn-Grand_Palais

Mapping Movement: The Black-throated Gray Warbler Migrates

Generated by Cornell University and public contributed observations, there are a whole lot of mesmerizing interactive maps capturing a whole lot of bird migration patterns, here: ebirds. 

Vacuuming The Cosmological Threats of Dirt: Simulated Pigeon Shit in Las Vegas

Las Vegas' strip is an accumulation of anything's simulacra displayed in such a way that it can fit in a perfect picture frame. Wonderfully consumable, a Barthesian wonderland and very stimulating for four days, Las Vegas' simulacra is never dirty - tacky but never dirty - and always honestly thought-out, so it becomes very exciting when dirt is included in the equation.

After taking a cab from a convention center filled with electronics to Paris where I had a drink in a plastic-Eiffel Tower, I walked through a Hector Guimard-themed Casino to wait for a car to take me to Venice. Behind twenty other humans waiting for motorized saviors at the Paris (there's an unsaid ban against walking in Vegas), I noticed fake pigeon dung covering the Victor Baltard-inspired marquee. This isn't anecdotal.

As mentioned before, like the rest of Vegas, nothing is here by happenstance, everything is the result of recent thought-out and human-powered decisions. The water like every carpet and every tree was selected and transported by a group of rational humans less than thirty years ago. It is the most honest, and arguably rational, materialization of a late 20th century cultural phantasma composed of all and any signs and simulations. So seeing man-made fake pigeon dung in Vegas is very very meaningful. Perhaps it represents the American stereotype of Paris which includes more pigeon dung than the one they have for Venice (where there is no fake pigeon shit). Or perhaps Paris' train stations are the only ones worth reproducing for a hotel in Vegas hence the inclusion of its pigeons... 

Whatever the possible reasoning this instance adds an exciting new dimension to my research on pigeons and dirt as "matter out of place": the fact is that the matter signifying the presence of dirt (the pigeons) on the Las Vegas Paris' marquee is 'clean' (it isn't actual shit, but paint) and so beyond matter or context, this sanitized representation of dirt authenticates simulacrum by vacuuming any of the cosmological threats implied by the actual things it signifies.

And this is what is so charming about Las Vegas.

Exhibiting Pigeons: ''You can fool some of the pigeons some of the time, but not all of the pigeons all of the time.''

That's a quote from The New York Times of October 29th 1986.

And this image is the project I submitted for the The Occupy Wall Street week at the Art and Architecture Storefront gallery - that was presented in the exhibition that opened up friday.



Also turns out back in 1986 New York Pigeons were already fighting for a new world order of their own (a story noted by the New York Times, here).

Pigeons Are Our Friends: Bernice's Move

Published: Dirt and Pigeons

I'm happy to say my passion for pigeons has finally seen its first material manifestation in this multi-faceted, pleasantly deep and particularly clean issue of On-Site dedicated to dirt.

Jane, the Newest Necklace

I just finished a new necklace. It was named Jane, after the women who commissioned it. For more of these noisy attention seekers click here: http://chloeroubert.com/bijoux

Pretty Birds and Big Guitars: a lovely mediated version of an installation by Boursier-Mougenot

This Céleste Boursier-Mougenot installation was presented some time ago as a commission in the Barbican's The Curve. Although I never experienced the installation - it has now been replaced by John Bock's playful metallic home structures - and maybe the mediated version of it was better than the art it captured anyways, but there's something so subtle, delicate and humorous as well as violent and dark about this video/art piece that it is still worth a look every then and again: