Muhammad Ali and George Foreman duck and weave in Zaire in a boxing match billed as ‘The Rumble in the Jungle’. However, in the version visualised by American artist Paul Pfeiffer, the boxers aren’t fully there – their outlines can be seen but it’s as if they’ve turned transparent. The film has been edited, so our focus is now on the audience on the other side of the ring, who are entranced as they watch the match unfold. It’s one work in Pfeiffer’s major survey exhibition at the Guggenheim Bilbao, Paul Pfeiffer: Prologue to the Story of the Birth of Freedom, organised by Clara Kim, chief curator & director of curatorial affairs, and Paula Kroll, curatorial assistant, both from The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (where the exhibition originated), in collaboration with Marta Blavia, associate curator, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.

Pfeiffer isn’t interested in showing us the sport of boxing but rather the effect on those watching, who almost view it as a religious experience – the way we imagine men and women would have behaved when confronted with majestic church altars during the Renaissance. He has also reproduced this effect for Muhammad Ali’s famous fights against Sonny Liston in Miami and Joe Frazier in Manila—all three on small screens so we become focused on the details in the footage. This theme of sport as religion continues in many of his works, building a strong argument that sport has replaced religion in many societies, triggering intense emotions of ecstasy and despair, depending on the outcome.

STIR asked the artist: “Do you miss the spectacle by not rooting for a team?” Pfeiffer responded, describing himself as “extremely moved” while adopting a “scientific” stance. Pfeiffer’s series with the clearest parallels to religion is made up of his large-scale photographs of basketball players caught in mid-flight in a cruciform pose as if they are being held aloft by the light of heaven.

STIR quizzed him on the title of this series, Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and whether the title is trying to make a statement about sport or religion, given that in scripture, the horsemen bring about the end of the world. However, Pfeiffer’s view is that people shouldn’t infer anything specific from his titles (relating to religious art history works—in this case, Albrecht Durer’s prints). Pfeiffer is comfortable with this ambiguity, stating, “I'm less interested in advancing my own meanings. I’m more interested in finding titles that potentially could function as vehicles for multiple meanings.”

1966 is a year stamped in history for England football fans, as the only year their men’s team won the World Cup. Pfeiffer’s interest in the event is that it was the first World Cup final that was televised globally, with one feed even being shown at Madison Square Garden in New York. He’s recreated the atmosphere of this competition in a large room with speakers, but there’s a further subterfuge as the sound we hear is not from the match itself but recreated using hundreds of Filipino fans cheering and chanting as if they were the crowd in 1966. The American artist spent his childhood in the Philippines, and for this work, he was able to fill a cinema in his former home country to react to the game as it played out. It’s a canny comment on how the 1966 match was intensified by the tense nationalism from both sets of fans in post-war Europe, yet the Filipino audience created a realistic-sounding replica without any of the biases that the original fans would have felt. The sounds we hear are neutral, but our knowledge of the match makes us feel a tension that’s not there. 

The video footage of the match is seen on a small screen in the room, removing almost all details except for one player, so we’re first immersed in the sound. The work, titled The Saints, references the chant of ‘when the saints go marching in’, once again highlighting the parallels between sport and religion.

Pfeiffer’s analysis of quasi-religious presences extends to music, as seen in Live Evil, his distorted take on a performance of Michael Jackson, where he becomes an amorphous glittering figure that somewhat resembles Jackson even as he lacks a head and seems to have extra limbs. It’s as if he’s become more than just a man through his dance moves and outfit—not quite human nor God, but another entity entirely. While the title comes from a Miles Davis album, it will be hard for viewers to not draw references to the abuse accusations made against Jackson—both when he was alive and posthumously.

Sculptures are also integral to Pfeiffer’s practice, as seen by several body parts based on Justin Bieber after the pop singer became a born-again Christian. For the series, Pfeiffer collaborated with artisans who specialise in making Catholic statues—once again equating religion with modern-day celebritydom.

There’s a playfulness to Pfeiffer’s work that comes through, particularly in his work that relates to Hollywood, as we see Cecil B. DeMille approach the stage to introduce a movie; just as he’s about to speak, it loops farcically to Tom Cruise thrashing on a sofa in a scene from the movie Risky Business.

Paul Pfeiffer is a conceptual artist whose works can feel cerebral but are also accessible—featuring sports, movie and music references that will make them readily identifiable. The different uses of video, sound and sculpture ensure the works don’t feel repetitive despite often being based on the same theme of observing the observers of major events and capturing their emotional reactions.

The Guggenheim in Bilbao is associated with bombastic works such as Jeff Koons’ Puppy and Louise Bourgeois’ Spider sculpture outside, Richard Serra’s monumental steel works and Jenny Holzer’s light installation inside the museum.

Entering Paul Pfeiffer’s exhibition is subtler and it makes for a great contrast from being overwhelmed by larger works to being confronted with smaller pieces that are less about the immediate sensation of seeing them, but letting the ideas in them sit with you as you mull them over. While a lot of his references are to North American sports, music and film, the ideas behind them translate to a European audience.

It’s Pfeiffer’s first comprehensive survey in Europe, presented after first being shown at The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles earlier in 2024, and this should help establish his presence outside North America as his fascinating works merit greater attention.

‘Paul Pfeiffer: Prologue to the Story of the Birth of Freedom’ is on view at Guggenheim Bilbao from November 30, 2024 –  March 16, 2025.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position of STIR or its editors.