Boxing, a sport whose popularity has declined since the heroism of George Bellows’s paintings, concurrent with a developing scientific understanding of traumatic brain injury. Paul Pfeiffer’s new videos graze those topics; they slow down our perception of its violence so that we can see what happens in the ring. In a two-channel video, Three Figures in a Room (2015), Pfeiffer shows Foley artists overdubbing the 2015 Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Manny Pacquiao title fight, to make the action seem more audibly real. In three additional videos, Pfeiffer has erased one opponent from bout footage, providing a clear view of what happens to the body as it is pummeled. This abject anatomy is horrifying, but also beautiful. NOAH DILLON
Paul Pfeiffer, Three Figures In A Room, 2015-16, two synced video channels on two projectors, four synced audio channels, Mac Minis, dimensions variable, TRT: 48:00, looped.
Through November 12, 2016. 521 West 21st Street, New York, 212 255 1105
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