Justin Bieber Torso

This is one of the sculptures created by the artist in collaboration with artisans and woodcarvers known as encarnadores (from the Latin word meaning “to make into flesh”) who produce santos, or religious icons for Catholic churches or for private worship. First envisioned with artisans in the Philippines during a residency with Bellas Artes Projects in 2017, these works were modeled after Justin Bieber and transform the pop star—who had recently declared himself a born-again Christian—into a contemporary embodiment of Jesus Christ. The original set of sculptures, consisting of a head, torso, and two outstretched arms covered in a dense tapestry of tattoos, represent Bieber’s body in santo form. On the occasion of this exhibition, Pfeiffer has expanded the series by collaborating with artisans in Seville, Spain, and Tlaxcala, Mexico, to make new sculptures, thereby tracing colonial trade routes that date back to the sixteenth-century. The sculptures illuminate the labor and artistry behind centuries-old religious traditions and their ties to the history of global networks that continue into the present day.