Barcelona

Barcelona exemplifies Pfaff’s transition toward a lighter, more ephemeral style. Its balanced composition bridges the gap between the visually dense and colorful style of her early sculptures and the muted, more linear work that she began to produce toward the end of the decade. In this work, Pfaff incorporates brightly colored discs featured in works like La Calle, La Calle Vieja (1990) but renders them in transparent glass rather than opaque plastic, allowing light to pass through the sculpture rather than bounce off solid planes of color. Pfaff also uses the same hollow circular structures that are present in the slightly earlier Horror Vacui (1988). The circles seem like they are reproducing – they branch off of each other in various sizes, beginning at the far left and moving toward the center of the piece in clusters that cast shadows against the wall behind it, multiplying them further. Barcelona represents the point at which Pfaff’s sculptures begin to move off of the wall and into the gallery space. Although this work is wall-mounted like the pieces that preceded it, the structure is distinctive in that it engages the floor as well by incorporating freestanding elements such as the base on the left and the table and chairs on the right. Instead of being hidden, the “skeleton” and support structures are exposed and integrated into the sculpture.