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For immediate release Public Art Fund presents… Artist Paul Pfeiffer's A video installation documenting the life-cycle of the chicken at the World Trade Center PATH Entrance the World Financial Center North Bridge On View April 15 through June 28, 2001 New York, New York - The Public Art Fund presents a major video installation by acclaimed young artist Paul Pfeiffer at the heart of one of the busiest commuter crossroads in the world - the World Trade Center and World Financial Center. Amidst this hub of human movement, Pfeiffer installs a video artwork that captures the ten-week life cycle of a flock of chickens as they hatch from their eggs and develop from day-old chicks to full-grown adults in an organic, free-range environment. This pre-recorded video image will be played in real time, 24 hours per day, seven days a week, above the steady flow of pedestrian traffic. During the day the chickens preen and scratch and eat against the backdrop of the green hills and blue sky of the countryside; at night they fluff up their feathers and gather in groups to sleep. One small video screen resembling surveillance equipment is installed at the foot of the PATH trains' massive elevator banks to play Pfeiffer's videos in the World Trade Center. And, on the North Bridge of the World Financial Center two plasma screens offer commuters a daily glimpse of this unfolding pastoral drama. Intended to match the rhythms of this community of commuters, the video does not require sustained conscious engagement from its viewers. Rather, it is meant to be seen in passing for a few moments, day after day in the periphery of consciousness, barely registering a subliminal image. With Orpheus Descending Pfeiffer takes the idea of looking to nature for physical renewal and the restoration of spiritual balance as it is conceived in the broader American imagination. Pfeiffer notes that "in the proto-American poetry of Emerson and Thoreau, nature is regarded as the very principal of personal freedom, the antidote to the social conformity and commercialism of the modern world. Orpheus Descending is a public artwork conceived in the spirit of restoring balance to the often-alienating tempo of city life. Amidst urban congestion and corporate stress the piece throws open a window onto nature, revealing the cycles of life amid the green lushness of a farmyard setting." Pfeiffer borrows from the classroom science lesson of the "miracle of life" as seen through the incubation of a chicken egg into a living chick. In Orpheus Descending, the lesson is expanded to include the chicken's entire life cycle. The video begins with an image of 25 eggs as they incubate for two weeks until little beaks begin to break through the shells, and the chicks hatch. After hatching, the video records the chickens' growth into full-grown "broilers", achieving their maximum adult weight of approximately 4lbs. The chickens are seen day and night with the outdoor coop in the background, occasionally pecking at the lens of the video camera. On the seventieth day the video ends with the full-grown chickens standing in the gentle breeze as the sun slowly descends. The video ends as quietly and mysteriously as it began. Orpheus Descending may be thought of as a meditation on life and death inserted into a familiar daily routine, recasting the scene in a new light. Who is Orpheus if not the commuter ascending and descending the escalators? The art object in this scenario is not just the video screen or the chickens per se. The screen is merely the visual interface through which a dialogue between the biorhythms of two mutating species is performed. 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. About Paul Pfeiffer Paul Pfeiffer has had solo exhibitions at 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, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Greater New York, P.S. 1, New York, At Home and Abroad, Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, and 14 Artists, End House Art Center, Dumaguete City, Philippines. Pfeiffer lives and works in New York. About Public Art Fund The Public Art Fund is a non-profit arts organization supported by generous contributions from individuals, foundations, and corporations, and with public funds from The New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency, and the City of New York Department of Cultural Affairs. # # # Contact:
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