Let us do something, while we have the chance

“Let us do something, while we have the chance: On Mario Pfeifer’s performance Again - Live” in If you end up with the story you started with, then you’re not listening along the way.” ed. Gaëtane Verna. Italy: Mousse Publishing, 2020.

This bilingual and internationally distributed publication follows Pfeifer’s first comprehensive solo exhibition in Canada / North America which took place from June 22 to September 2, 2019 at The Power Plant, Toronto. The exhibition was curated by Director Gaëtane Verna with the assistance of Nabila Abdel Nabi.

The publication includes essays by Georg Imdahl on the artist’s socio-political investigations and Nomaduma Rosa Masilela on Pfeifer’s first live performance work. A conversation between Pfeifer and the multiple award winning filmmaking Canadian artist Stan Douglas weaves through the historical and contemporary issues of image production, music, pop culture and politics of the now. The film's script of Again – Noch einmal (2018) is published alongside an index of produced works and publications 2008 – 2020 to complete the publication as Pfeifer's most extensive monograph to date.

"Nomaduma Rosa Masilela’s essay introduces Pfeifer’s first performance work, Again – Live (2019), which had its world premiere at Amsterdam’s Pakhuis de Zwijger. Taking as her starting point her analysis of Samuel Beckett’s famous play Waiting for Godot (1953), Masilela proceeds to current sociopolitical debates about the ongoing news of police brutality and the toppling of “colonial conquerors and oppressive histories” across the globe to remind us of Beckett’s plea: “Let us do something, while we have the chance!”—Gaëtane Verna

Edited by Gaëtane Verna. Texts by Stan Douglas, Georg Imdahl, Nomaduma Rosa Masilela, Gaëtane Verna

(Above text quoted from Mousse Publishing)