Paul Pfeiffer: Prologue to the Story of the Birth of Freedom presents 25 years of work from artist Paul Pfeiffer whose practice interrogates ideas of spectacle and mass culture. By repurposing the tools and systems of media production—including editing, staging, and outsourcing—Pfeiffer recontextualizes global celebrities such as pop stars, film actors, and athletes to reveal relationships between audiences and icons. As the artist puts it, “who’s using who? Is the image making us, or do we make images?”

Whether through televised broadcasts of sporting events, editorial photographs of cultural icons, or the ecstasy of a soccer stadium, Pfeiffer interrogates the consumption of images and culture. For Pfeiffer, the basketball court, the boxing ring, and the stadium not only serve as platforms for grand spectacles but as sites where the body politic—of a nation, of a community, of society—is imagined, defined, and contested

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