Paul Pfeiffer (born 1966 in

Honolulu Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island ...

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

) is an American sculptor, photographer and

video art Video art is an art form which relies on using video technology as a visual and audio medium. Video art emerged during the late 1960s as new consumer video technology such as video tape recorders became available outside corporate broadcasting ...

ist. Described by peer artist Gregory Volk as a clever manipulator of popular media, images and video technology, Pfeiffer is stated (by Volk) as one 'who excels at recasting well-known athletic and entertainment events with surprising open-ended nuances.'

Life

Pfeiffer was born in

in 1966. At the age of ten, he moved to

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

with his parents who were classically trained musicians. He later moved out of the country at the age of fifteen. Pfeiffer earned his

Bachelor of Fine Arts A Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) is a standard undergraduate degree for students for pursuing a professional education in the visual, fine or performing arts. It is also called Bachelor of Visual Arts (BVA) in some cases. Background The Bachelor ...

printmaking Printmaking is the process of creating artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand processed techniq ...

from

San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximately ...

in 1987 and later earned his

Master of Fine Arts A Master of Fine Arts (MFA or M.F.A.) is a terminal degree in fine arts, including visual arts, creative writing, graphic design, photography, filmmaking, dance, theatre, other performing arts and in some cases, theatre management or arts admini ...

degree from

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools. It also admi ...

, New York in 1994. Pfeiffer has lived and worked in New York City since 1990. Between the year of 1997 and 1998, Pfeiffer had also participated in the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), ...

independent Program. He is currently represented by

Paula Cooper Gallery The Paula Cooper Gallery is an art gallery in New York City, founded in 1968 by . History Predecessors Cooper ran her own space, the ''Paula Johnson Gallery'', from 1964 to 1966, where Walter De Maria launched his first solo show in New York. ...

in New York City; carlier , gebauer in Berlin, Germany, Galerie Perrotin in Paris and Thomas Dane Gallery in London, UK.

Exhibition history

Pfeiffer has had museum solo shows and projects at

Duke University Museum of Art The Nasher Museum of Art (previously the Duke University Museum of Art) is the art museum of Duke University, and is located on Duke's campus in Durham, North Carolina, United States. The Nasher, along with Dartmouth's Hood Museum of Art and ...

, Raleigh-Durham, NC (2000), the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (2001),

UCLA Hammer Museum The Hammer Museum, which is affiliated with the University of California, Los Angeles, is an art museum and cultural center known for its artist-centric and progressive array of exhibitions and public programs. Founded in 1990 by the entrepreneur- ...

, Los Angeles, CA (2001), the Barbican Arts Centre, London, United Kingdom (2001), Kunsthaus Glarus, Glarus, Switzerland (2001), the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL (2003), The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, HI (2003), K 21 Kunstsammlung, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf, Germany (2004), Middlebury College Museum of Art, Middlebury, VT (2005),

National Gallery of Victoria The National Gallery of Victoria, popularly known as the NGV, is an art museum in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is Australia's oldest and most visited art museum. The NGV houses an encyclopedic art collection across two ...

, Melbourne, Australia (2005),

University of Iowa Museum of Art The University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art is a visual arts institution that is part of the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. Since its inception, the museum has partnere ...

, Iowa City, IA (2007), Nationalgalerie im Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin, Germany (2009),

Sammlung Goetz The Goetz Collection (Sammlung Goetz) is a private collection of contemporary art in Munich, Germany. It opened in 1992. The collection is owned and continually being enlarged by the former gallery dealer Ingvild Goetz, who presents the collectio ...

, Munich, Germany (2011),

Blanton Museum of Art The Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art (often referred to as the Blanton or the BMA) at the University of Texas at Austin is one of the largest university art museums in the U.S. with 189,340 square feet devoted to temporary exhibitions, permanent coll ...

, Austin, TX (2012), Museum of Contemporary Art and Design, Malate Manila, Philippines (2015).

Awards and scholarships

In 1993, Pfeiffer was awarded as a Travel Grant Pilot by the National Endowment for the Arts and Arts International. In 1994, he was given the Project Grant by the Art Matters foundation. In 1994, Pfeiffer won a

Fulbright-Hays Fellowship The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

to the Philippines where he spent one year. In 1999, Pfeiffer participated in the World Trade Center Residency and was awarded the

Public Art Fund Public Art Fund is an independent, non-profit arts organization founded in 1977 by Doris Freedman, Doris C. Freedman. The organization presents contemporary art in New York City's public spaces through a series of highly visible artists' projects, n ...

. Pfeiffer was awarded the inaugural $100,000 Bucksbaum Award at the

Whitney Biennial The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American art, typically by young and lesser known artists, on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, United States. The event began as an annual exhibition in ...

in 2000. In 2001, he was included in the

49th Venice Biennale The 49th Venice Biennale, held in 2001, was an exhibition of international contemporary art, with 65 participating nations. The Venice Biennale takes place biennially in Venice, Italy. Prizewinners of the 49th Biennale included: Richard Serra a ...

; that same year, Pfeiffer participated in the MIT List Visual Arts Center Residency, which was jointly organized by the MIT List Visual Arts Center and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Pfeiffer then participated in the Artpace Residency in San Antonio, TX in 2003. He was awarded The Alpert Award in the Arts, Visual Arts in 2009. In Fall 2011, Pfeiffer was a Fellow at the

American Academy in Berlin The American Academy in Berlin is a private, independent, nonpartisan research and cultural institution in Berlin dedicated to sustaining and enhancing the long-term intellectual, cultural, and political ties between the United States and Germany ...

. Pfeiffer was honored at the LMCC 2020 virtual celebration.

Selected works

Pfeiffer's work is time-consuming and meticulous. "Pfeiffer makes a show of removing his subjectivity while investing himself intensely in his work: It can take him four months to produce a scant two minutes of video." *''The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse'' (2000 - ): a series of photographic images of basketball games, from which all players except one have been edited out. *''The Long Count (The Rumble in the Jungle)'' (2001): a video of Muhammad Ali and George Foreman fighting, from which the fighters have been digitally removed. *''Live From Neverland'' (2007): a video installation, divided into two separate videos, depicting Michael Jackson's 2003 press conference, in which the icon addresses child-molestation allegations, but with the sound removed and replaced on a separate screen by 80 children reciting the King of Pop's words in the manner of a Greek chorus. Pfeiffer's deft editing alternately speeds up and slows down Jackson's tape to sync perfectly with the children's recitation.The Project: Past and future exhibitions
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References

External links

Biography, interviews, essays, artwork images and video clips
from

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

series '' Art:21 -- Art in the Twenty-First Century'' - Season 2 (2003).
''New York Times Review'' of ''Pirate Jenny'' at the ''Gagosian Gallery'' (2004)carlier , gebauer Gallery: Paul PfeifferThomas Dane Gallery: Paul Pfeiffer

Paul Pfeiffer- Guggenheim Collection

Paula Cooper Gallery: Paul Pfeiffer biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pfeiffer, Paul American video artists American photographers 20th-century American sculptors San Francisco Art Institute alumni Hunter College alumni Living people 1966 births 21st-century American sculptors