Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree, Christopher T. Creyts; Matthew Day Jackson; Collaborative Art Editions

Artwork Overview

Christopher T. Creyts; Matthew Day Jackson; Collaborative Art Editions, Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
Christopher T. Creyts; Matthew Day Jackson; Collaborative Art Editions, Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
Matthew Day Jackson , Collaborative Art Editions , Christopher T. Creyts
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
2015–2016
Matthew Day Jackson, artist
born 1974
Collaborative Art Editions, publisher
Christopher T. Creyts, printer
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree, 2015–2016
Portfolio/Series title: There Will Come Soft Rains
Where object was made: United States
Material/technique: color intaglio
Dimensions:
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 505 x 367 mm
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 19 7/8 x 14 7/16 in
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 686 x 521 mm
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 27 x 20 1/2 in
Plate Mark/Block Dimensions (Height x Width): 479 x 383 mm
Plate Mark/Block Dimensions (Height x Width): 18 7/8 x 15 1/16 in
Credit line: Museum purchase: Peter T. Bohan Art Acquisition Fund
Accession number: 2016.0024.10
Not on display
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Images

Label texts

Passenger pigeons were once the most abundant bird species in North America, and yet humans hunted them to extinction near the beginning of the 20th century. Audubon recounts both the astonishing quantity of pigeons he observed in 1813, so many as to blot out the sun, and the volume of birds shot and eaten, enough to feed the local population for days.
Jackson places the passenger pigeons before a Tower of Silence, a place where—according to the religion Zoroastrianism—unclean dead bodies are placed so that scavenging birds and sunlight can purify them. Jackson’s reference to Towers of Silence evokes the prospect of divine intervention as apocalypse, but the end of days has already come for the passenger pigeon.

Exhibitions

Audubon in the Anthropocene: Works by Matthew Day Jackson
Kate Meyer, curator
2020
Audubon in the Anthropocene: Works by Matthew Day Jackson
Kate Meyer, curator
2020
Conference of the Birds
Emily Kruse, curator
Sabine Rishell, curator
2020

Resources

Audio

Listen to a curator talk about this work.
Listen to a curator talk about this work.
Audubon wrote the prologue to tragic tale of the passenger pigeon in 1813 when he described the bird as being abundant almost beyond our imagination. The climax of the story occurred about 100 years later in 1914 when the last passenger pigeon died in captivity. Now, 200 years after Audubon described this bird, Jackson’s series bookends the story. We’ve been without passenger pigeons for as long as it took humans to wipe them all out.

Links

See the original art by John James Audubon referenced in this print.