Paul Pfeiffer

Live From Neverland is part of my ongoing series of works with found footage, a recreation of a public statement Michael Jackson read on television around the world in 1993. I chose the footage less for the content of the speech and more for the global recognition factor. This televisual image of Jackson is also just a visually arresting image with a dream-like quality to it, thanks to the saturated colors and the shocking whiteness of his face. [...] The scene seems staged and affected. This footage is paired with a second video image showing a chorus of 80 men and women performing Jackson’s monologue in unison. [...] I slowed down the Jackson footage, synching the movement of his mouth to match the measured pace of the chorus. In the resulting slow motion image, Jackson appears to be struggling to speak, as though he’s stuck in some viscous medium and can barely move.

The Long Count (Rumble In The Jungle), is the second of three works in which the artist has painstakingly removed Muhammad Ali from the boxer’s most famous bouts. This piece continues his investigation of racial identity through his use of popular iconography, namely athletes and movie stars, across various media.

The Long Count III (Thrilla in Manila) is the third in a series of works based on the three best-known fights in Muhammad Ali’s career between 1964 and 1975. It addresses the last rounds of the final boxing match between longtime rivals Ali and Joe Frazier, held in Manila on October 1, 1975 and ultimately won by Ali. The subtitle - Ali’s promotional slogan - indicates the subject of this work. Pfeiffer has effaced the figures of the boxers from the ring by digitally copy-pasting sections of background over them. However, they remain as blurred contours, a ghostly presence, and the ropes surrounding the ring occasionally move as one of the invisible fighters leans against them. The soundtrack was extracted from interviews with the boxers who participated in the three fights; Pfeiffer has edited out the words, and only sounds like stammering and breathing remain.

In 'The Long Count (I Shook Up the World)," a tiny video monitor, which plays and replays in a continuous loop the third round of the 1964 match between Sonny Liston and Cassius Clay. Characteristically, the three-minute sequence has been Pfeifferized: the figures of Liston and Clay have been removed from the sequence as completely as current technology allows, serendipitously leaving a pair of ghostlike, barely discernible presences that flicker across the surface of the crowd like wind moving over water.

"In the video ‘John 3:16’...a reference to a passage so often quoted that its sort of the Biblical code for the New Testament that gives you the formula for salvation and eternal life. There’s an interesting kind of resonance that I see between this idea of a formula for salvation and eternal life and the promise of digital media that never break down and literally can live forever...that can always be copied endlessly. In a way, the medium itself represents a kind of promise that almost has spiritual overtones." - Paul Pfeiffer

Pfeiffer converted a moment of midgame triumph for the Knicks forward Larry Johnson into anguished isolation in a piece titled "Fragment of a Crucifixion (After Francis Bacon)." By simply eliminating the other players, the crowds, even the insignia on his uniform, Mr. Pfeiffer converted Mr. Johnson's arm pumps and energized jubilation into expressions of terror. The player seemed like a hunted animal or a martyr and, either way, a profoundly disturbing metaphor for the plight of the black man in American culture. -Roberta Smith

A short video comprised of collaged footage of the encarnadores at work, a live Justin Bieber concert in Mexico, rice paddy farmers in the Philippines, Buddhist meditation DVDs, and kids from various countries singing along to Justin’s remix of Luis Fonsi’s Despacito posted on social media. Pfieffer’s video explores mimicry–whether as popular fandom, sculpture, photography, videography, or digital image capture–as an act of devotion, and the ways by which beliefs, which control how one views oneself and the world, spread like wild-fire across an expanding mediated landscape.