Mo Ganji: Pyrenean Ibex | Pyrenäensteinbock | Capra pyrenaica pyrenaica | No. EX 007/012 from work group 8/99

Pyrenean Ibex | Pyrenäensteinbock | Capra pyrenaica pyrenaica (Extinct)

Mo Ganji turns toward the Pyrenean ibex — a mountain-dwelling wild goat once native to the Pyrenees — by letting the single line move toward essence rather than agility, landscape or heroic ascent. The line condenses the being into a reduced coherence, setting aside horn curvature, terrain and physical prowess so that presence can surface without depiction. In Ganji’s understanding, the line does not belong to the ibex alone; it remains open, reminding us that every form is also a human concept provisionally placed upon a living continuum.

Capra pyrenaica pyrenaica is listed as Extinct (EX) on the IUCN Red List. The subspecies declined steadily over the 19th and 20th centuries due to sustained human pressure. The last known individual, a female named Celia, died in 2000 in Ordesa y Monte Perdido National Park in Spain, marking the first documented extinction of a mammal in the 21st century.

The principal causes of extinction included overhunting, competition with domestic livestock, habitat degradation, and possibly disease. As numbers dwindled, genetic diversity collapsed, leaving the population increasingly vulnerable. A later cloning attempt briefly produced a single individual in 2003, but it survived only minutes, underscoring the limits of technological recovery once ecological continuity is broken.

Ganji’s single line opens a space in which the ibex can be encountered beyond revival narratives or symbolic rescue. It allows the being to be perceived as a life once shaped by altitude and persistence, suggesting how extinction fixes a form in concept alone — while the living conditions that once allowed it to move, adapt and return have already vanished.