visiting artist :: paul pfeiffer

The artist Paul Pfeiffer is known for manipulating imagery from popular sports culture. In a series of video clips taken from actual broadcasts of boxing, basketball, hockey, and soccer, Pfeiffer maticuloulsly removes foreground objects (athletes or the ball) frame by frame or loops the singular motions repeatedly. I the piece "caryatid" the Stanley Cup appears to float by its own power -represented the idea of a false idol.

Another piece that resonated with me was "Orpheus Descending" which consisted of capturing 2 1/2 months of continuous video footage of chickens. The video was then replayed in real time (2 1/2 months) at the world trade center. Workers at the (former) WTC were able to cohabitate with the chickens virtually (even though there was an actual separation of both time and space).

During Paul's visiting artist lecture he admitted he has reached a point of frustration in his work and is searching for the "next." It was refreshing to hear an artist be honest and human at the same time. I was surprised at his reaction to the suggestion that he could he start using the internet as a platform for his work. He responded that although he appropriates material found online it would be redundant to put that work back online. He rationalized that there is already too much content online and that he does not want to be considered "techie." I would argue that there are too many objects in the real world but that does not stop anyone from making more of the same. At least with online data we can employ search engines to filter the amount of virtual objects that we are exposed to. I am no fan of copyright (see previous post), however I do not think it is right to "take from the web" and not put give it back online in its new form. In Paul's case he uses appopriated material he finds online, manipulates it, and then displays it in the closed forum of the gallery.