Edited by Ingvild Goetz, Stephan Urbaschek. Text by Hal Foster, Katharina Vossenkuhl.
The acclaimed video and sound installations, sculptures and photographs of Hawaiian-born American artist Paul Pfeiffer (born 1966) deal with the idea of an “afterglow” of mass-media images that are rooted in the collective memory of a globalized media society, and that can be deconstructed with the aid of some heavy editing. Pfeiffer digitally manipulates found media footage, relentlessly cutting, retouching, duplicating and layering the material with the aim of freeing the viewer to experience its ideologically loaded cultural constructedness. In the 1999 video “Fragment of a Crucifixion (After Francis Bacon),” for example, basketball star Larry Johnson's whoop of victory is looped into a weirdly unnatural expression of terror (or death, as the title suggests). This volume surveys Pfeiffer's works of the past 15 years, with abundant color reproductions.
"Through the diffuse and cloudy stadium light […] Pfeiffer almost conveys the impression that this 'gleaming figure' is on its way to heaven."
Stephan Urbaschek, excerpted from On the Empty Beach of Santa Monica in Paul Pfeiffer. from which Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (18), 2004, is reproduced.
"Paul is not only an editor of electronic archives, brilliant techniques and (moving) image changes, he also tells of collective image memories in a completely different fashion than, for example, Thomas Demand. He distills very specific aspects from them, aspects which compel us to reconstruct images of commonly known events before they were adapted. And he speaks of modern myths, if the almost religious reverence given to sports stars, actors or musicians today. To illustrate this, he brings out dramatic positions of his heroes, mythologizes the persons--or better: the archetypes--and their emblematic positions. Pfeiffer is thus a sophisticated critic of society whose documentary work on our collective experiences lies in emphasizing particular moments or sensory abstractions, such as those of background noise."
Ingvild Goetz, excerpted from Encounter in Paul Pfeiffer.
FORMAT: Hbk, 7 x 9.75 in. / 160 pgs / 191 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $55.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $65 ISBN: 9783775731522 PUBLISHER: Hatje Cantz AVAILABLE: 10/31/2011 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Out of print AVAILABILITY: Not available TERRITORY: NA LA
Published by Hatje Cantz. Edited by Ingvild Goetz, Stephan Urbaschek. Text by Hal Foster, Katharina Vossenkuhl.
The acclaimed video and sound installations, sculptures and photographs of Hawaiian-born American artist Paul Pfeiffer (born 1966) deal with the idea of an “afterglow” of mass-media images that are rooted in the collective memory of a globalized media society, and that can be deconstructed with the aid of some heavy editing. Pfeiffer digitally manipulates found media footage, relentlessly cutting, retouching, duplicating and layering the material with the aim of freeing the viewer to experience its ideologically loaded cultural constructedness. In the 1999 video “Fragment of a Crucifixion (After Francis Bacon),” for example, basketball star Larry Johnson's whoop of victory is looped into a weirdly unnatural expression of terror (or death, as the title suggests). This volume surveys Pfeiffer's works of the past 15 years, with abundant color reproductions.
