Artist Lecture (02-15-10): Paul Pfeiffer

Today's lecture was different than I was expecting, primarily because I got the lecture's mixed up, so I was walking into something completely different than what I was expecting. However, Paul Pfeiffer's work is something that I hadn't previously been exposed to and it was interesting to see and hear his various perspectives.

I liked when he spoke about how art-making has a central psychological message and its up to the viewers to determine that message. However, what I found confusing is, that so much of his work was based on what the viewer perceived, yet when asked if he's observed his viewers viewing, he said he hadn't (sorry about all the "views" in that sentence!). I didn't really understand why he would not try to understand that more, but then perhaps it would spoil the mission if he did. But, he did mention that people had often times spoken to him about what they thought the work meant, but he didn't seem to correct them -- just take note. I think thats something thats pretty important for all artists to understand as well. We do not necessarily have to beat our message over everyone head and insist that is all they gather from our work -- but to instead absorb.

Overall, his work seemed to vary in size and what I felt was a pretty important aspect to his work -- perspective. By perspective, I mean that in some pieces, the position in which the piece was placed played a major role in what was being portrayed. In the piece of the football (soccer to America) players, the subjects were falling to the ground. The instillation was placed on the ground. In order to interact with it, you had to crouch down or stand far back to view it. In another piece, its position was eye-level and then another projected onto a wall to be viewed from further away. This was the aspect of his work that I actually enjoyed the most. His not only manipulation of the environment but of how the audience would view it. Since most of his work is projected 4x5 inches, the audience must get close to fully understand what is happening.

My favorite piece was the twenty-minute video, The Morning after the Deluge. Yeah of course because it showed nature but also because it captured a moment (actually a rather long moment...20 minutes) that I may never experience for myself in real life. And if I were to for some reason witness the sunrise/set in Province Town, then I would never see it from his perspective. I'm honestly not sure what exactly led him to create the piece but as a viewer, I found it comforting. Another piece(s) I found interesting was, 24 Landscapes. Like he said, I would never have known that these were images of Marilyn Monroe, once removed and that it wasn't really important to know that. He said that instead these iconic images of Monroe without her in it, could perhaps become iconic in their own right, without her.

To be honest, I had a difficult time really wrapping my mind around his work. I do not think I would have come to the conclusions that he sort of led us to in his lecture. But I do like that made it a point to say that the work should speak for itself but its also fair to think that what's said about it will carry on through audiences.

I could not find any of his video pieces online, however I did find this art21 video which shows some of his work. I also provided some stills/instillation shots of his work.