In a vast empty building which stands in the shadow of the new stadium, 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 worship, to lose themselves and find themselves in mass communion with their heroes on the field of play.
The Saints
A major new sound and video installation
WEMBLEY
The opening of the new Wembley Stadium in 2007 is the catalyst for a major
new sound and video installation for Artangel by leading US artist Paul
Pfeiffer. Presented in a vast empty building which stands in the shadow of
the new stadium, 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 worship, to lose themselves and find themselves in mass
communion with their heroes on the field of play.
The sounds of the crowd cheering and chanting and praying sweep around the
site – Rule Britannia, Deutschland über Alles, When the Saints Go 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. The huge arena of the installation reverberates with
the sound of Wembley's history – 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 1966 soundtrack.
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...
For further information or images please contact Janette Scott on
+44 (0)7713 1400 Janette@artangel.org.uk
Opening 26 september 2007
The Junction, Engineers Way, Wembley, London
Free Admission