Jack Pierson

This exhibition, by one of America’s most inventive and evocative artists Jack Pierson, is a survey of his work from the 1980s to date. Comprising some 45 works, the exhibition includes Pierson’s iconic photographs, drawings and installations; as well as his renowned word sculptures. Drawn to stardom, melodrama, loneliness and emotional narrative as subjects, Pierson infuses his work with literal and visual references to lost love, sexual longing, faded glamour, fleeting moments and sentimental musings. Pierson conveys these thoughts and emotions through a wide cross section of media which include colour photographs, photographic wall collages, graphite and watercolour drawings on paper, linear wall drawings, works on canvas, wall and floor sculptures composed of found letters often containing neon and electric lights, and installations made of found furniture and miscellaneous objects.

Jack Pierson was born in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1960 and studied at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston. He has been the subject of exhibitions throughout Europe, Asia and the United States. Recent solo exhibitions include Centre d’Art Santa Monica, Barcelona, 2007; Sabine Knust, Munich, 2007; Regen Projects, Los Angeles, 2007, and Galerie Aurel Scheibler, Berlin, 2006. A mid-career retrospective of his work was shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami, in 2002 and his Self-Portrait series was shown at the 2004 Whitney Biennial. Pierson’s works are featured in the permanent collections of major museums of contemporary art including the Guggenheim Museum, New York, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco. He lives and works in New York and Southern California.

The exhibition is curated by Richard D Marshall, independent curator and former curator of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

An artist’s book accompanies the exhibition with texts by Richard D Marshall, Rachael Thomas, Senior Curator: Head of Exhibitions, IMMA, and writer Wayne Koestenbaum.

Jack Pierson
Kurator: Richard D Marshall