Swoopers and gurglers cooing for a mate. Stout fluffy bodies adorned with iridescent blue necks and silver wings. Pigeons run this city and I obey the flight.
Just as the pigs in ‘Animal Farm’ (1945) represent the Bolshevik narrators, pigeons are the art-world radicals of the present in ‘Nancy Treadler’ (2022) a short film by Rea Burton and Meg Porteous. It accompanies their new duo show ‘Birds’ at Neon Parc’s city campus in the Melbourne, a favourite of mine for its bathroom tiling and great location near Soi38. The gallery has hosted many artists old and new, braving the limelight this time are birds, more specifically Auckland based pigeons that reside on the windowsills of the artist’s shared studio in Aotearoa/NZ. Wall works on all four walls and a video installation to the right compose the show; a mixture of photographs and paintings showing the varying skills between the two artists. Although the Burton and Porteous excel at their own craft, the two mediums coincide perfectly in the small gallery with similar sized canvases and eloquent consistency to their bird theme.
First to catch my attention is the dirty portrait of Albanese, our recently appointed PM, later when searching through the room sheet I discover the ‘dirty’ look is painted with real bird shit. Out of curiosity I google “Albanese bird” and to my delight I discover the Labor Party leader bears a sympathetic pigeon poo story himself, set in his uni days when he was a Wharf cleaner and had to blast decades of pigeon poo off the Sydney Opera house - charming. Especially charming with the (post)punk earring and a coat of resin giving off a slimed gloss to the plaque. Burton’s other paintings share similar human and animal conjunctions. ‘Bird Man’ and ‘Geoff Newton’ (the Neon Parc Director) are the other two portraits completed in a similar fashion to the Albanese work with the main medium being scat. Are they mockeries of the subjects? Painting an Australian politician and gallery director in bird excretion certainly has the artist saying ‘marks my words’, or perhaps the subjects simply look best in poo colours.
Onto the series of pigeon digitals by Meg Porteous scattered in between Rea’s paintings, the pigeon photos are better recognised as mug shots for their smouldering expressions as if caught red-handed. They appear sleazy and slutty. The flash portraits express the characteristics of the individual birds, as if to stereotype their very own city pigeon crew with the leader, second in command and the henchman; the chubby one and the lanky one of course. These photographs are slick in their detail, they capture the scattered birds in a moment of stillness and precision against the darkened backgrounds. Highlighted in every photo is the blaring orange pupil of each bird, scrutinising my moves as I walk around the gallery alone.
The video that concludes the show features Bridget Riggis-Cuddy as an assertive art dealer named Mary Boone. The accompanying text to the show, written by Bridget herself, details the preparation for the role from finding the right nail shade to embodying the NYC gallerist. The collaborative short film between Rea and Meg encapsulates all the previously viewed artworks with a springy soundtrack itching towards suspense, bringing me to a greater understanding of the glorious pigeon suffering from main-character syndrome.
Two other pigeon related works graced my eyes in Paris earlier this year, compelling me to visit Neon Parc in deducing this pigeon craze. Furthermore, back in April Yusi Zang had installed her show ‘Sometimes We Seek Truth in the Traces of Other’ at TCB which featured pigeon tails in dung balls, anti bird spikes along the windows and a painting of bird poo liquidised in water. What is happening…have we been living in pigeon era this whole year?
In Romainville which is a suburb 45min away from Paris, they have a Collingwood Yards style complex which houses galleries, studios and event spaces. The converted industrial site, a favoured location for almost every art forward city in Europe, also put on a show for the birds at the Air de Paris space. ‘Les Pigeons du Square’ was the homage exhibition to Jean Painlevé’s last colour film. This group exhibition was basically centred around the pigeon which was the main star in Painlevé’s film, nothing serious or too conceptual. Vincent Gernot showcased one of the two video works in the show, it was an appropriated video originally made by Boris Abour - my partner’s fav. Wherein a camera would be set up in a square populated by pigeons and suddenly someone walks along the screen releasing a line of birdseed, what would happen is the birds immediately flock from all around and start pecking at the seed in a perfect line. Chaos organised. Boris Achour’s earlier version in 1996 is a recurring motif in his practice in which he uses lines to create structure where previously disorder prevailed. The works suit the exhibition, they also suit the general public as it’s an easily accessible subject point one that we are all familiar with - but where do we make space for pigeons in art. Maurizio Cattelan’s fascination with the pidge has stretched from the Venice Biennale to a more recent installation at the Bourse de Commerce Pinault Collection. They perch and coo never getting too close to us out of skit, until somebody pointed it out I hadn’t noticed the stuffed pigeons gracing the Pinault Collection ceiling in a line overlooking the crowds below. At first unnoticeable - that is the aura of the pigeon. Shall we call them domestic now? Or are they still disease spreading flying rats. Nevertheless they encompass us, they flock our streets, eat our food and poop on our heads. They are the restless true gansters of the streets. Rea Burton and Meg Porteous re-imagine this metropolis in their show ‘Birds’. Pigeons are relocated at the top of the art-world food chain far out of anybody’s reach, high up in the clouds.
