PAUL PFEIFFER
The Saints
The Junction, Engineers Way, Wembley,
London HA9 0PB
26 September – 28 October 2007
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...
The Saints
The Junction
Engineers Way
Wembley
HA9 0PB
Open Wednesday to Sunday
11am – 7pm
Admission Free
For further information 020 7713 1402
Commissioned by Artangel. Supported by Bloomberg and Outset Contemporary Art Fund.
Photo credit: Thierry Bal