overview
Lesson 2 | Summary
Activity Pages
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lesson 2 | the face of fame
activity | the public eye
How does a photograph, painting or other representation of a person
make them famous in the public eye? Have students consider the various
purposes of portraiture. What are examples of portraiture that have
been used to memorialize, pay tribute to, honor, sensationalize?
View Paul Pfeiffer's series of photographs
based on professional basketball players: “Four
Horsemen of the Apocalypse (6)” and “Four
Horsemen of the Apocalypse (7).” Interested in the idea
of celebrity and spectacle in a media-saturated society, Pfeiffer
has captured the players at moments of extreme intensity in front
of thousands of fans, perched in the precarious position of potential
winner or loser. Ask students to pay attention to the issue of celebrity
in Pfeiffer’s work. How does Pfeiffer’s work address
the celebrity figure?
Pfeiffer explains that, “I’ve been selectively appropriating
these images and manipulating them to remove all the contextual
detail, so that what remains is not an absent figure, but an intensified
figure by virtue of the fact that you are lacking some aspects of
a context to place it in.” What must the viewer rely on to
understand the identity of the individual in the images when contextual
detail has been removed?
Pfeiffer has also commented that, “Although it’s literally
taking the figure away, in some ways it’s also intensifying
something about the figure that used to be there.” Ask your
students what Pfeiffer means by this comment; how is it possible
to read the image when so much has been removed? Discuss Pfeiffer’s
statement, “There’s something special about the spectacle
of seeing a human being at the center of the gaze of thousands of
people. To me, it’s thrilling and also terrifying.”
Have students discuss what he might mean, identifying what might
be thrilling and what might be terrifying.
Pfeiffer describes his process of creating one of the images for
“Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.” He states:
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“In the last
of these images that I completed, for example, I started from
an image taken from a game in which Wilt Chamberlain is putting
the ball in the basket and there’s three or four figures
around him all trying to prevent him from doing that. And
the figure that remains is not Wilt Chamberlain. It’s
actually one of the minor figures from the margins of the
image. All the others were removed and this sideline image
was moved to the center. So for me it’s quite striking
because, by virtue of being in the margins, I suppose the
person who composed the shot wasn’t too concerned with
what the figure on the side was doing. He’s reaching
up to stop the ball and is in this position that’s so
foreshortened that his shoulders almost completely cover his
head. His head is thrown far back and his legs are extended
out in a kind of extreme way… Moving this figure to
the center makes sense if you see him on the margins. It's
an odd contradiction that you’re left with because now
it seems the shot was composed completely around him. And
it's breaking every rule of composition.” |
Why does contemporary society view professional athletes with such
adulation? Is this kind of admiration justified? Do the athletes
need to be recognized figures, such as Wilt Chamberlain, Magic Johnson,
or Shaquille O'Neal, or are the “marginalized” individuals
that Pfeiffer brings to the center of his work equally glorified?
How does the media influence the individuals that are most revered?
Collier Schorr has also captured images of sports figures, but from
the more intimate perspective of a photographer of amateur sports.
Her images of high school wrestlers portray a different side of
the spectacle of sports. View images of her work including “At
Ernie Monaco's THE EDGE,”
“America Flag with Scratch” and “Blow-Up.”
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