PAUL PFEIFFER : THE DRIVES

26 Apr-25 May 2013

Overview

In his third exhibition at Thomas Dane Gallery — his first in London since 2009 —Paul Pfeiffer brings together a large sculpture, two video installations, and a series of photographs in the two gallery spaces. These works form an investigation into the emotional drives that prompt human behavior and lie behind our attempts at understanding and organizing the world around us. In psychonanalytic theory, the drives fall into two basic taxonomies: Eros and Thanators, or libido and death. From the seemingly perfect and ritualistic architecture of mass spectacles, to the creation of animal communities, to the deceptive secrecy of the family cell, the tensions between these two categories arise throughout Pfeiffer’s works.