From June 20 to August 31, 2024, photographs by Walter Pfeiffer, in collaboration with Galerie Sultana, will be on view at Theoreme Editions. Set against the backdrop of the Palais Royal garden, Pfeiffer’s photographs are presented in dialogue with Theoreme’s pieces of design.
In his search for beauty, for the depiction of a male body far removed from cliché ideals, for playful eroticism and for lightness, Walter Pfeiffer (*1946) uses the photographic lens. The Swiss artist trained his eye at an early stage in his life as a shop window decorator, later he portrayed rebellious young people from the gay underground scene in Zurich, and finally supplied photo-series to the most “in” international fashion magazines.
Walter Pfeiffer oscillates successfully between fashion photography and fine art. His landscapes, still lifes and portraits are never nondescript. They eschew perfect beauty, and they carry within them the revolutionary spirit of the 1970s counterculture. Soon, friends and lovers were frequently dropping by to be photographed. The mainly male models steer clear of classical associations of male and female. Distinctive features in Walter Pfeiffer’s art are minor blemishes, garish flashlights, naked skin, strong colours and intense gazes. As if in a feverish dream, his images speak to us of longings that are more attractive than reality, of desire, of a blithe joie de vivre and of youthful love.
