Jack Pierson
Template:Short description Script error: No such module "other uses". Template:DMCA Script error: No such module "Template wrapper".Script error: No such module "Check for conflicting parameters".
Jack Pierson (born 1960 in Plymouth, Massachusetts) is an American artist and gallerist. Pierson is known for his photographs, collages, word sculptures, installations, drawings, and artist's books. His works are held in numerous museum collections.
Early life and education
Pierson graduated from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 1984 with a bachelor's in fine arts.[1] He spent his last year of college at Cooper Union as part of an exchange program.[2]
Artistic practice
Pierson's practice encompasses wall drawings, word pieces, installations, drawings, paintings, and photographs.[3] For the project The Source, artist Doug Aitken filmed a conversation with Pierson exploring the essence of his creative process.[4]
Work
Photography
Pierson is considered part of a group of photographers known as the Boston School, which includes David Armstrong, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Nan Goldin, Mark Morrisroe, and twins Doug and Mike Starn, among others.[5] All of them knew one another in the early 1980s and photographed their immediate circle of friends in situations that were, or appeared to be, casual or intimate.[6]
In 2003, Pierson published Self Portrait, a book of photographs featuring 15 images of men arranged to suggest the arc of a lifetime, beginning with a young boy and progressing to old age; none of the images is of the artist himself.[6] His "Self-Portrait" series was shown in the 2004 Whitney Biennial.
Pierson's work is regularly commissioned for magazines, and he has undertaken photography projects for several luxury fashion houses.[7] Commissioned by the Italian luxury label Bottega Veneta, he photographed models Liya Kebede, Karmen Pedaru, and Alexandre Cunha for the 2012 spring/summer ad campaign in Coconut Grove, Florida.[8]
Word sculptures
Pierson began making his Word Sculptures in 1991, utilizing found objects: mismatched letters salvaged from junkyards, old movie marquees, roadside diners, Las Vegas casinos, and other forsaken enterprises. These works spell out individual words or phrases.[9]
In 2025, the Obama Foundation commissioned Pierson to create a sculpture spelling out "hope", one of President Barack Obama's core campaign slogans, with found letters for the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago.[10]
Video
Commissioned in 1997 by the artistic collective Bernadette Corporation, Pierson's video Past Life in Egypt is a collaboration with Ursula Hodel, who plays a glamorous dominatrix recounting her past life as a queen of Egypt.[11]
Paintings and drawings
In 2006, inspired by an earlier series of pencil drawings from an old postcard of a woman's face, Pierson produced a suite of twelve large-scale silkscreen paintings: linear graphics in black ink on off-white linen.[11]
In a group of what Pierson refers to as "first page drawings", he copies the first page of books by Barbara Pym, Jean Rhys, Sister Wendy, and Marilyn Monroe, among others, on 11 by 14 inches (28 cm × 36 cm) paper.[11]
Collections
Pierson's work is held in public collections internationally, including:
- Art Institute of Chicago[12]
- Irish Museum of Modern Art[13]
- Los Angeles County Museum of Art[14]
- Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art[15]
- Metropolitan Museum of Art[16]
- Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago[17]
- Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami[18]
- Museum of Modern Art[19]
- San Francisco Museum of Modern Art[20]
- Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art[17]
- Whitney Museum of American Art[21]
Art market
Pierson is represented by Xavier Hufkens, Thaddaeus Ropac, Regen Projects, and Lisson Gallery (since 2022).[22]
Elliott Templeton Fine Arts
In 2023, Pierson opened an art gallery in Chinatown, New York,[23] intended as an "homage to the gay shopkeepers who thrived downtown in the '80s and '90s",[24] and described by Hilton Als as "a jewel box of a space devoted to delicate ideas strongly executed."[25] Its interior was designed by Fernando Santangelo.[24] In 2025, the gallery opened a location in Miami.[26]
Its name is taken from a character in The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham, of whom Pierson said, "They didn't say he was homosexual but you just knew."[26]
Personal life
Pierson is openly gay.[26]
References
Page Template:Reflist/styles.css has no content.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Massachusetts College of Art (1996). Perspectives. Massachusetts College of Art and Design. The College.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Jack Pierson". Interview Magazine. February 6, 2017. Retrieved November 12, 2024.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Jack Pierson". Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac. Paris/Salzburg. Archived from the original on February 17, 2013.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Doug Aitken – The Source: Jack Pierson". Tate Modern. London. December 7, 2012.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.McKenna, Kristine (June 1, 1997). "Chronicle of a Death Foretold". Los Angeles Times.
- ^ a b Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Gefter, Philip (December 18, 2003). "Self-Portrait as Obscure Object of Desire; Jack Pierson's Autobiography, of Sorts, in Photographs of Unidentified Men". The New York Times.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Jack Pierson". Galerie Xavier Hufkens. Brussels/Paris. June 19, 2025.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Binlot, Ann (January 3, 2012). "Bottega Veneta Taps Jack Pierson for Latest Arty Ad Campaign". Artinfo. Archived from the original on January 9, 2012.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Jack Pierson". Regen Projects. Los Angeles. April 14 – May 12, 2007. Archived from the original on June 6, 2013.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Goukassian, Elena (September 12, 2025). "Artists Including Jenny Holzer, Alison Saar, and Kiki Smith Creating Commissions for Obama Presidential Center". The Art Newspaper.
- ^ a b c Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Jack Pierson: Melancholia Passing Into Madness". Cheim & Read Gallery. New York. March 30 – May 6, 2006.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Jack Pierson". The Art Institute of Chicago. 1960.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Untitled". IMMA.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Jack Pierson". LACMA Collections.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Kino, Carol (March 29, 2006). "You Can Take This With You". The New York Times.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Jack Pierson: The Lonely Life". The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved August 28, 2022.
- ^ a b Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Jack Pierson, Fascination, 1990". MCA Chicago.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Jack Pierson". Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami. April 24, 2013. Archived from the original on July 22, 2019. Retrieved July 22, 2019.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Jack Pierson". The Museum of Modern Art.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Jack Pierson". SFMOMA.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Jack Pierson". Whitney Museum of American Art.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Greenberger, Alex (May 13, 2022). "Jack Pierson, Artist with a Cult Following, Joins Lisson Gallery As It Prepares to Expand". ARTnews.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Sandstrom, Emily (February 29, 2024). "Photographer Jack Pierson Walks Us Through His Personal Art Collection". Interview Magazine.
- ^ a b Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Baritaux, Zio (April 18, 2024). "A Lakeside Restaurant Reopens in Paris's Bois de Boulogne". New York Times.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Als, Hilton (October 21, 2024). "Pick Three". New Yorker. Vol. 100, no. 34. Archived from the original on November 5, 2024.
- ^ a b c Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Sheets, Hilarie M. (November 30, 2025). "Jack Pierson in Miami: An Artist and a City in Transformation". New York Times.
External links
Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Authority control/config' not found. Lua error in mw.title.lua at line 404: bad argument #2 to 'title.new' (unrecognized namespace name 'Portal').
