Film UbuWebWalter Pfeiffer (b. 1946)
Films: Music for Millions (1977) Kawasaki Cut (1985) and The Plaza (1985-2001)
Born in Beggingen, Switzerland in 1946, Walter Pfeiffer is a Swiss photographer, poster designer, playwright and filmmaker. He has explored the erotic, festive and intimate territories of daily life for over thirty years. Walter Pfeiffer is recognized by both the underground and mainstream scene of artistic photography. Walter Pfeiffer’s work foreshadowed a whole iconography that addressed together the performative aspects of disguise as well as notions of sexuality and identity for the first time. Some of his favorite themes throughout his oeuvre include the male body, which he showcases in a sensual and sometimes scandalous ways. Other motifs important to Walter Pfeiffer are nature, flowers and still lifes, which are typically composed of playful objects. What is characteristic of his photographs is a certain delicacy and poetry that clearly emerge from his groundbreaking works. In 2006 Walter Pfeiffer exhibited photographs with themes representing the male body while combining the importance of nature and flowers. In 2008, “Fotomuseum Winterthur” organized the first retrospective of Walter Pfeiffer’s work. Pfeiffer also has a selection of original videos on the same themes of his work. Walter Pfeiffer’s most recent individual exhibitions include “Recent Photographs” at the Galerie Baumet Sultana in Paris (2006), “Abbt Projects” in Zürich (2007), “In Love With Beauty” at the Fotomuseum Winterthur (2008). Additionally, there is a book of the same name, 'In Love With Beauty', which is the first overview of the complete works of Pfeiffer. In 2011, Walter Pfeiffer exhibited his work at the Galerie Sabine Knust Maximilian Verlag in Munich. Walter Pfeiffer is based in Zurich.