Jack Pierson
Less and more
September 11 – October 23, 2021
Opening: Saturday, September 11, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
Gallery hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
Regen Projects is pleased to present Less and more, a career-spanning exhibition of works by Jack Pierson. This marks the artist’s tenth solo presentation at the gallery.
Over the course of more than three decades Pierson has wryly and poetically explored themes of memory, desire, longing, beauty, despair, loss, and glamour. Although Pierson emerged as the youngest member of the so-called Boston School, which included fellow photographers David Armstrong, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Nan Goldin, and Mark Morrisroe, his practice quickly expanded beyond photography into drawing, painting, collage, installation, and text-based sculpture. Pierson is known for his ability to subtly coax the poetic from the everyday—manifesting romantic affect, longing, and desire through seemingly banal objects, rough sketches, and charged turns of phrase. As New York Times art critic Roberta Smith states in a recent exhibition review, “The deep content of Jack Pierson’s art is the vulnerability of life devoured by time.”
Less and more will be arranged as a poetic, achronological, and comprehensive installation that tracks Pierson’s diverse yet idiosyncratic practice, creating a sojourn through his career. Pierson has undoubtedly mined his own queerness, and specifically queer desire, through both a historical and personal lens, tying these threads together through found images plucked from the media, snapshot photography, portraits, and collage. Early sculptures and installations recalling and even reconstructing slices of the domestic will also be brought together for the exhibition to showcase Pierson’s ability to imbue objects with the tenderness we often associate with the intimate space of the home. His practice has been equally invested in explorations of materiality, the formal qualities of line, shape, and color, and the possibilities inherent in abstraction. As such, this exhibition will showcase a wide selection of drawings, paintings, watercolors, and collages that provide evidence of Pierson’s long-standing commitment to these mediums and modes of expression.
In addition to bringing together work produced during the length of Pierson’s career, Less and more will also present a selection of new works. The exhibition will include large-format photographs that transform earlier works into historical documents, text-based sculptures, and collaged works on metal supports that can be rearranged and reconfigured upon each showing to account for new material collected by the artist.
Jack Pierson (b. 1960, Plymouth, MA) earned a BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art in 1984.
Pierson’s work has been featured in solo exhibitions nationally and internationally including 5 Shows from the ‘90s, Aspen Art Museum (2017); OMG, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT (2015); Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Málaga (2009); Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2008); Regrets, Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami (2002); and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (1995); among others. Next spring, he will participate in High Desert Test Sites 2022: The Guests of Hotel Palenque.
Work by the artist is held in prominent museum collections including The Baltimore Museum of Art; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Seattle Art Museum; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, among others.
Pierson has been a prolific creator of artist books and zines throughout his career, with notable examples of these publications including the celebrated Tomorrow’s Man series, now in its fifth edition (Bywater Bros. Editions, 2020); JACK PIERSON + BABY ROBERTS (EY! BOY COLLECTION, 2020); Stardust (Salon Verlag, 2012); Sing a Song of Sixpence (Salon Verlag, 1997); All of a Sudden (Powerhouse, 1995); and Angel Youth (Galerie Aurel Scheibler, 1992).
Several of his early artist books were compiled and reprinted in a 2008 monograph, Angel Youth (Charta, 2008), titled after his 1992 artist book. Other monographs of his work include The Hungry Years (Damiani, 2017); Desire/Despair (Rizzoli, 2006); Every Single One of Them (Twin Palms, 2004); The Lonely Life (Ursula Blickle, 1997); and All of a Sudden (Powerhouse, 1995); among others.
He lives and works in New York and Wonder Valley, CA.
For all press inquiries, please contact Elizabeth Gartner at +1 310 276 5424 or elizabeth@regenprojects.com.
For all other inquiries, please contact Bryan Barcena, Stephanie Dudzinski, Jennifer Loh, or Irina Stark at Regen Projects.