The Power Plant

Mario Pfeifer (born 1981 in Dresden, Germany) studied at the California Institute of the Arts, Städelschule Frankfurt am Main, the Universität der Künste, Berlin and Academy of Visual Arts, Leipzig. He lives and works in Berlin. He has had solo exhibitions at institutions including Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, Germany (2018), Museum of Contemporary Art Leipzig – GfZK (2016); Ludlow38 New York (2015); Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland (2015); and Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Santiago de Chile (2014). His work was shown at Berlin Biennale (2018); Mercosul Biennale (2017); Montevideo Biennale (2016); and has been part of group exhibitions at venues including CCA – Center of Contemporary Art Lagos; Museum of Art and Technology, Lisbon and MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main. Pfeifer has been the recipient of Fulbright and DAAD scholarships. While in Toronto for his Power Plant exhibition, Mario Pfeifer is a guest of the Goethe-Institut.

Mario Pfeifer’s work explores representational structures and conventions in the medium of film, in locations ranging from Mumbai to California to the Western Sahara. Conceiving each project out of a specific cultural situation, he researches social-political backgrounds and weaves further cross-cultural art historical, filmic and political references into a richly layered practice, ranging from film and video installations to photographs and text installations. Often, Pfeifer collaborates on publications that reconsider these projects, offering research materials and critical investigations by writers and thinkers of related fields, concerning issues suggested in his projects for a wider social-political discussion.