Paul Pfeiffer Explores Spectacle In“Olympia” At Perrotin LA

(MENAFN- USA Art News) Artist Paul Pfeiffer recently opened“Olympia,” his latest solo exhibition with Perrotin in Los Angeles. Pfeiffer, who has been based in New York since the early 1990s, was in the city for the show's debut.

During his visit, Pfeiffer attended a BTS concert at SoFi Stadium, describing the K-pop supergroup's appearance as“both intimate and monumental.” He noted his“bias” as either RM or Jimin, and his“bias wrecker” as Jung Kook. However, he clarified he wasn't part of the ARMY fandom, but rather conducting“anthropological research” to understand“the nature of soft power.”

Stadiums have been central to Pfeiffer's conceptual art for nearly three decades, serving as a lens for his study of spectatorship and its rituals. He views the stadium as an effective metaphor for how“individual subjects can be brought into group alignment,” a phenomenon he witnessed firsthand with 70,000 BTS fans. His 2023 survey,“Prologue to the Story of the Birth of Freedom,” which traveled from MOCA LA to the Guggenheim Bilbao and MCA Chicago, included works like Red Green Blue, 2022. This video installation examined a Georgia State University football game, focusing on the marching band's ability to influence the crowd rather than the players. A band director told Pfeiffer before filming,“I know that I've done my job when I see people cry.”

Pfeiffer's work frequently concludes that intense emotional responses experienced during live entertainment are often the result of meticulously engineered spectacles. He stated that people“are nothing if not manipulable,” a vulnerability often exploited for commercial and political purposes.

At Perrotin, where“Olympia” is on view through November 7, Pfeiffer's new architectural drawing series,“Vitruvian Figure (Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum),” depicts the iconic venue with 1 million seats. These seats, when viewed from above, become indistinct black lines, symbolizing the anonymity of online spectatorship where fans are numerous but disconnected. The exhibition also features a sculptural pair of legs with bleeding stigmata wounds and the phrase“Better At 70,” an actual Justin Bieber tattoo, inscribed on the thigh. New additions to his ongoing“Incarnator” series, which began in 2018, involve commissioning encarnadores, Catholic woodworkers known for hyperrealistic depictions of Christ, to sculpt fragments of Bieber's body.

Pfeiffer conceived of the“Incarnator” series during Bieber's 2017 Purpose tour, which was scheduled to stop at the Iglesia ni Cristo, a Filipino megachurch, before its cancellation. Pfeiffer, who was at a residency with Bellas Artes Projects in the Philippines at the time, saw a parallel between churches and stadiums as“ancient forerunners in the R&D of mass communication.” He considers both Jesus and Bieber as global brands and“tragic sons who died (or went to rehab) in order to rise again.”

Born in Honolulu in 1966, Pfeiffer divided his childhood between Hawaii and the Philippines. His parents, both church singers, raised him in the non-pictorial Protestant tradition. Despite not being a believer, Pfeiffer acknowledged that church music can profoundly affect him. He said,“when I hear the music, more often than not it actually moves me to tears.” He added,“I don't think it's a contradiction to suspend my disbelief,” recognizing the sublime pleasure of spectacle and its temporary illusion of inclusion.

Source: Cultured Magazine

MENAFN09102026005694012507ID1111786176