Public Art Fund: In the Public Realm: Paul Pfeiffer

Press Release
Artist Bio
Sponsorship
Location
Publication
Bibliography

Paul Pfeiffer "Orpheus Descending, 2001"

video installation

April 15 - June 28, 2001

At the World Trade Center PATH Entrance
and the World Financial Center North Bridge

Paul Pfeiffer, "Orpheus Descending" Photo: Dennis Cowley

Above the steady flow of pedestrian traffic, Orpheus Descending displayed the ten-week life cycle of a flock of chickens as they hatched from their eggs and developed from day old chicks to full grown adults. The video was displayed in real time, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for the full duration of the birds' seventy-five day life cycle. Installed in two of the most definitive urban thoroughfares of New York, the World Trade and the World Financial Centers, Orpheus Descending opens a window onto nature, revealing the cycles of life amid the green lushness of a farmyard setting. Commuters were afforded a daily glimpse of an unfolding pastoral drama during their brief journey to and from work. The video did not require conscious engagement from its viewers, yet it was intended to be seen day after day in passing, as a subliminal image.

Artist Bio
Paul Pfeiffer has had solo exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art and Art In General, New York, the List Visual Arts Center, MIT, Cambridge, MA, and Kunst-Werke, Berlin, Germany among many others. His work has been included in group exhibitions including the Whitney Biennial 2000 and Greater New York at P.S. 1, both in New York, At Home and Abroad at the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, and 14 Artists at the End House Art Center, Dumaguete City, Philippines. Pfeiffer lives and works in New York.

Sponsorship
Orpheus Descending is a project of the Public Art Fund, commissioned through In the Public Realm, a program of site specific proposals and projects by New York artists.

In the Public Realm is supported with public funds by The New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency, the City of New York Department of Cultural Affairs, and the Office of the Brooklyn Borough President, and with generous support from The Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation, The Jerome Foundation, The Silverweed Foundation, The Chase Manhattan Foundation, and friends of the Public Art Fund.

This project was made possible with the assistance of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and The World Financial Center Arts & Events Program. Special thanks to the World Trade Center, the Port Authority Trans-Hudson Corporation, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, American Express, Merrill Lynch, Brookfield, and Battery Park City Authority.

Location
Orpheus Descending was viewed on video monitors at the bottom of the escalators to the New Jersey PATH trains at the World Trade Center and on the North Bridge of the World Financial Center.