Today I went to a lecture by Paul Pfeiffer. Pfeiffer messes with videos of celebrities and famous athletes to achieve what he is trying to show. Pfeiffer said that he “enjoyed the openness in the way you approach a painting and thought he could achieve the same effect with video.” We were told that many of his acclaimed videos were shown on screens that would be miniature in size and adequately sized for a dollhouse. The screens being this small made what was being shown very intimate.
One of the specific things he is thinking about a lot right now is what he thinks about identity as in race or sexual identity because its one of the things he is forced to rethink as times and sensibilities have changed. He new wants to change the context throughout his images.
One piece that I rather enjoyed was “24 Landscapes.” It was 24 images of the beach that had originally had Marilyn Monroe in them, which Pfeiffer had photo-shopped out. Pfeiffer has the idea that both the origin of the image is important but not important all at the same time, which he considered counterintuitive.
Another piece that I was very interested in was the one about the chicks and their lifespan. Pfeiffer made a video of chicks being born and then raised into chickens. He ran surveillance on them for 24 hours a day for 75 days. Then showed it in the PATH on the way to the world trade center. Started showing video on Easter Sunday 2001. It is about human behavior and how it is related to animal behavior, it is a slight reflection on yourself.
“Art making is not just abut making picture or objects but has a real psychological meaning to it. Any object that an artist plays with, consciously or not, impacts the viewer. “ -Paul Pfeiffer
Gallery
http://www.gagosian.com/artists/paul-pfeiffer/
http://www.thomasdane.com/artist.php?artist_id=12
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