Humans seem to have always had a preoccupation with flight, so it’s not shocking that find out that flying dreams are one of the top 10 dream themes reported by deep sleepers. Whether it’s the feeling of freedom or the fact that it is physically impossible for us to fly on our own, Duke Riley taps into the fantastical nature of our imaginations by turning his dreams into reality, no matter how absurd or outlandish they seem. Curated by Sarah Howard, Curator of Public Art and Social Practice at the USF Contemporary Art Museum, Flights of Fancy explores social issues from a birds-eye view, using pigeons as a stand-in for humans to allow us to examine them in a different light.
From an early age, Riley has been fascinated with maritime history and culture (since he grew up along the coast), and pigeons (he nurtured one back to health when he was a kid, and it kept coming back “home” to him). Using the lighthearted nature of these beasts allows the artist to talk about tough issues like freedom, liberty, patriotism, and surveillance in an open way.
Don’t be so quick to call his projects “bird-brained,” because years of planning and research goes into each project. Trading with the Enemy evolved from the late practice of ship captains who would use carrier pigeons to send messages while crossing the Straits of Florida before the US embargo on Cuba. Teasing the effectiveness of trade and border control, Riley prepared 50 birds in his fleet to fly from Havana to Key West. The kicker? The pigeons were separated into two teams, The Smugglers and The Filmmakers, in which each bird was strapped in with a bra-like harness (actually made out of bra straps and colorful materials); members of the former team carried an illegal Cuban Cohiba cigar, the latter a miniature video camera. As Sarah Howard said about the birds during her curator talk: Pigeons are pretty much the only “technology” that can’t be hacked or traced by surveillance balloons.
The absurdity and ineffectiveness of individually “mailing” one Cuban cigar at a time isn’t beyond Riley. He furthers the depth of these odysseys by immortalizing their likeness and journey on placards made of upcycled roof shingles from Key West. He personifies these winged creatures with names of known smugglers or infamous film directors, along with short but touching narratives of their missions (whether they completed their task, or died in Riley’s arms due to disease).
His time-lapse videos from The Filmmakers are particularly striking, especially when one of the birds takes refuge on a party boat off Key West. You can hear and see the people on the boat enjoying drunken conversation, or looking up at the pigeon curiously, wondering what is strapped to it. In this moment, you start to wonder what innocent people get caught in the crossfire of military surveillance, thinking there is privacy in the middle of the ocean? Insuring freedoms through constant monitoring starts to feel like an infringement on freedom.
As with many other things in life, the bad reputation of one can ruin the reputation of all (like with the fear of sharks, alligators, or even specific groups of people). Shooed off with worry of catching a disease, pigeons have earned the unglamorous nickname “rats with wings,” but it’s Riley’s aim to reclaim reverence for these avian creatures. In his other, more recent body of work Fly By Night, the artist captures the grace and beauty of pigeon flight in his series of long-exposure photographs. Attaching small LED ankle bands to a flock of 2,000 pigeons and sending them off into the night sky with waving flags and whistles blowing, the light captured on film is reminiscent to abstract expressionist mark-making. Yet the beauty is not without the lingering notion of tracking, mapping, and surveillance that carries weight over from his other body of work.
Pigeons aren’t native to North America, though they are found in nearly all urban areas around the world, truly making them a global immigrant. Though Riley is dealing with specific relations between U.S. and Cuba, there is much relevance to current international relations with refugees. This exhibition has many threads of meaning to explore and uncover with border issues and self-determination, but at the moment, the message that resonates loudest from these cooing pigeons is that we are all immigrants or nomads trying to find a safe place to call home without fear of being judged.
Duke Riley: Flights of Fancy
USF Contemporary Art Museum, 3821 USF Holly Dr., Tampa.
Through March 4.
