The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago will present the work of Paul Pfeiffer, who is best known for manipulating media footage from sports and music culture to expose the absurdity, complexity, and violence of popular spectacles. This exhibition highlights Pfeiffer's recent work Three Figures In A Room, which is an edited version of the infamous 2015 boxing match between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao known as the "Fight of the Century." The video of the match is projected in silence next to another video that is a recording of two sound effect artists who, using props and their own bodies, re-create every sound made by the boxers' movements. The two-channel installation is presented alongside works from the MCA Collection selected by the artist in collaboration with MCA Curatorial Assistant Grace Deveney, who organized the exhibition. Paul Pfeiffer runs from December 23, 2017 to May 20, 2018.
Three Figures In A Room uses repetition, omission, and juxtaposition to expose conventions of televised events and aspects of their production. While one screen plays edited footage of Mayweather and Pacquiao boxing, the other presents the work of two sound effect artists from Bangkok who were commissioned by Pfeiffer to produce the soundtrack. They re-create the sounds of swishing fabric, shuffling shoes, and landed punches, shifting the context of the sights and sounds of the event and dissecting the role media plays in shaping the experience of the viewer.
