Pigeons by the Seashore Fills Freak Bar at Coney Island USA, Brooklyn, NYC

Coney Island USA, the arts organization that anchors much of the neighborhood's oddball culture, has turned its Freak Bar into a gallery for pigeons. Pigeons by the Seashore is a group exhibition that opened Sunday, October 18, with a reception from 2 to 6 p.m., and it stays on view through December.

The organizers pitch it as the most unusual avian art show in New York City, a salute to one of the city's smallest, strangest and most recognizable residents. The curator is Allison Garber, who is credited on the poster as Little Brooklyn and also appears in the artist lineup.

More than 30 artists and collectives are included: Andrea P. Reese, Ben Lenovitz, Caryn Cast, Christopher Dane, Crappily Drawn Pets, Danielle Mastrion, Duke Riley, Erin Mathewson, Ethan Minsker, Hands of Julia, Hugo Gyrl, Isabel Roxas, Jennie Jones, Jessica Manbeck, Juan Carlos Pinto, Keri Sheheen, Little Brooklyn, Machine Dazzle, Maggie Scarlett Breen, Mark Gagnon, Marlena Vega, Miki Mu, Miriam Abrahams, Mother Pigeon, Nina Boesch, Noelani Fishman, Pigeon Be Pigeon, Roxane Aurora, Spencil, Steve Ellis, The Midori House and Todd Francis.

The exhibition poster plays on the building's own imagery. A black-and-white pigeon wears the grinning Tillie face that serves as Coney Island USA's emblem, perched above a photo of the organization's Surf Avenue facade with its sideshow and museum signs.

Freak Bar is at 1208 Surf Avenue in Coney Island, Brooklyn, in the same building as the group's other programs. For readers in Japan, it is a chance to see how a mixed field of illustrators, painters, performers and costume makers each interpret the city's most common bird, in a corner of New York known for carnival-era showmanship.