Roost 2008

Inigo Manglano-Ovalle made "Roost," using, it looks like, steel, wire, and a very alive rooster. The sculpture is like a geodesic dome, all lines and angles, a cage of sorts, and right there, at the bottom, is a real, live chicken doing its chicken thing. I can’t help but wonder what Manglano-Ovalle was thinking. Was it a comment on freedom and confinement, nature versus structure? The cool geometry of the sphere against the feathery, unpredictable rooster? The black chicken pecking around its unusual roost is so weird and captivating. I find myself wondering if chickens think about these things. It makes you think about what it means to be in a space, what it means to be seen, and how we all, in our own ways, try to make a home, or a roost, in this crazy world.