Visiting Artist, Kerry McDonnell, 02/15

The Morning After the Deluge, painting, 30.71x30.71", Joseph Mallard William Turner, c.1843

The Weather Project, installation, Olafur Eliasson, 2003

Morning After the Apocalypse, video installation, Paul Pfeiffer, 2003

Paul Pfeiffer is a photographer and video installation artist whose work focuses on found footage or photographs which he appropriates and alters. His piece Morning After the Deluge is a 20 minute, single-channel DVD video of a sunrise and sunset. The 2 scenes have been spliced together so that the 2 images/videos meet at the horizons: a black, wavering line across the width of the projection. The sun in the sunset frame is upside down so that, once it sets, the sun transcends the horizon (the black line) and becomes the sunrise of the 2^nd frame. I had a hard time understanding the concept behind this piece (as well as the rest of his work) but understood it to be something along the lines of capturing natural phenomena and grounding it within modern digital technology and its effect on the human perception of reality and nature. This seemed to be his most interesting piece. Though, maybe a little inaccessible, it was well thought. And like Amy Hauft’s installation Counter Re-formation, which referenced historical intricacies such as the Baroque and the desert dining tables of Henry the XIV’s rule, Pfeiffer’s Morning After the Deluge references the painting of the same name by William Turner and his experiments with light and color. He also references the day after the biblical flood that destroyed the world. This background information helps support his work and advances it further, conceptually. This piece was also really exciting because it reminded me a lot of Olafur Eliasson’s Weather Project in which he tries to recreate the natural phenomena of a sunset with modern technology in a location in which it normally wouldn’t be observed.

The first video he showed us was a loop of a figure writhing on a couch, which I thought was very voyeuristic in it's framing and POV, the qualities of which were enhanced by the very small projection display where the viewer would really have to get up close to examine the subject matter. I enjoyed the duality to his work and the inclusion of multiple perspectives, specifically in his piece Cross Hall which featured the projection of a microphone in a hallway in the White House where the President is often filmed giving speeches, and the second projection which was of a side-view of the podium and microphone. I wish he would’ve gone into more detail about his concept behind his work Orpheus Descending and Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse as I was completely lost trying to connect to these projects.

This visiting artist presentation, for all the hype it received, was very disappointing and somewhat frustrating. I had a huge issue following him as it seemed like every other word that came out of his mouth was “um,” which further disjointed his already incoherent explanation of his work. At times I wondered if even he understood what he was speaking about. I grasped little to no concept behind the majority of the pieces displayed and strove to find interest in the technical and aesthetic qualities of his work to make up for the lack of explanation about his conceptual means.

Art:21 Paul Pfeiffer

The Weather Project video