Paul Pfeiffer

Wembley Stadium lies at the heart of England’s image of itself. Built for the British Empire Exhibition of 1924, the original stadium hosted many momentous events which form part of the collective memory of the nation -- sporting contests and mass rallies -- moments of great national remembrance and rejoicing.

The opening of the new national stadium at Wembley in 2007 has been the catalyst for a major new sound and video installation for Artangel by the leading US artist Paul Pfeiffer. Presented in a vast empty building which stands in the shadow of the new stadium, and on the footprint of the original Empire Exhibition, The Saints celebrates one vital element of the stadium -- the crowd. Pfeiffer is intrigued by the multitudes who flock to the stadium to watch and cheer and worship, to lose themselves and find themselves in mass communion with their heroes on the field of play.

The sounds of the crowd beseeching, cheering, chanting and praying, sweep around the site. Anthems and hymns -- Rule Britannia, Deutschland uber Alles, When the Saints Come Marching In - mix with the chants of the names of individual footballers…. Bobby Moore… Nobby Stiles… It is the noise of the crowd at the most famous sporting event ever staged in Britain, the 1966 World Cup Final between England and Germany.

Moving between bubbling enthusiasm, edgy anxiety and intense communal joy, the huge arena of the installation reverberates with the sound of Wembley’s history - played through a large constellation of speakers - the soundtrack to a now phantom spectacle.

Video projections in the space reveal a surprising source for the some of the sounds. Pfeiffer has outsourced a cover version of the 1966 Final to a new and distant multitude. A crowd of young Filipinos has been brought together in Manila, an outpost of a different Empire, to chant and cheer their way through the soundtrack of 1966.

Somewhere in the middle of all this sound and fury, a solitary figure runs this way and that to no apparent purpose on an otherwise empty pitch, lost before the crowd…

Paul Pfeiffer was brought up in the Philippines and now lives and works in New York City. Over the past five years Pfeiffer has exhibited in group shows in many museums around the world including the MoMA and Whitney museums in New York, Venice Biennale, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London and the Castello di Rivoli, Turin. He has recently had one person exhibitions in the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago and K21, Dusseldorf , Germany.

he Saints is open Wednesday to Sunday 11am - 7pm. The Saints, The Junction, (Wembley Retail Park), Engineers Way, Wembley, HA9 0PB.

The Saints is commissioned and produced by Artangel, with generous support from Outset Contemporary Art Fund, the Annenberg Foundation, The Ellipse Foundation and the patronage of Special Angels Ivor Braka, Richard and Susan Hayden, Liz Kabler, Kadee Robbins and Jonathan Rutherfurd Best. The Saints is supported by Bloomberg. Sound, editing and installation produced by Somethin’ Else, London. Presentation of The Saints in Wembley Retail Park, courtesy of The Junction. With thanks to Thomas Dane Gallery, London and The Project, New York/Los Angeles. Artangel is generously supported by Arts Council England and the Company of Angels.

Artangel presents:
Paul Pfeiffer
The Saints
Ort: The Junction, Engineers Way, Wembley, London