Jack Pierson Honored at FAWC Gala
by Jaiden van Bork
For a guy whose unique work belongs to the collections of major institutions like the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Met (just to name a few), and who has known and collaborated with so many other titans of the contemporary art world, Jack Pierson is seriously humble. He speaks of his time in Boston, where he studied at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and met other members of the noted “Boston School,” such as Nan Goldin and the late Mark Morrisroe, but separates himself from his counterparts. “That was what they were there for… to be famous artists. [But] I didn’t dream that big,” he says. “Even today… I’m sort of still like ‘Ehh, I did this and it’s pretty good. I like it.’ But like, those guys think of themselves in competition with the Pantheon.”
Nonetheless, Pierson—who will receive the 2025 Distinguished Service in the Arts Award from the Fine Arts Work Center (FAWC) at their annual Summer Awards Celebration this Saturday—has an incredibly diverse body of work that has gained a significant cult following over the years. It has spanned across several mediums, but Pierson first gained notoriety for his photographs, which had their solo debut in 1990 at the Simon Watson Gallery on Lafayette Street in Lower Manhattan. Pierson’s bold experimentation with the medium—embracing nostalgia and playing ceaselessly with the idea of the candid snapshot with a simultaneous tendency toward careful, almost theatrical calculation—was received well by the New York art world. “It lit a fire under my ass,” he says, “Every time I got a little boost of confidence, either through praise or sales, I would take it a step further.”
This constant desire to do more and to experiment is undoubtedly to thank for Pierson’s success. It is this that encouraged him to move into the world of sculpture beginning in 1991 with his Word Sculptures—a vast collection of words and phrases assembled from salvaged display letters taken from old movie theaters and other businesses, partially inspired by Pierson’s time living on 42nd Street next to Times Square, where such lettering once ruled before the rise of digital LED displays and other means of communication. Nowadays, he says, these letters are even easier to find, since most businesses have abandoned them entirely. “The Paris Flea Market is where I get most of the really good ones these days,” he explains, “I’ve made friends with a woman in Paris who, you know, gets them for me… She goes around with her little bicycle with a trailer behind it, and buys them from people that are converting to digital signs or something.”
When asked if he is nostalgic for the presence of this type of display on marquees and storefronts, Pierson resists, saying he gets “more than enough” of it through his own work with them in his studio—but one cannot help but identify these sculptures with the same kind of nostalgia that emerges from Pierson’s photographs. It is a visceral nostalgia for a time and place long forgotten, and yet, like many of Pierson’s images, it is also very carefully curated and presented for the viewer, offering only ambiguity in its attachment (or lack thereof) to reality. Much of Pierson’s work therefore lies in an enchanting space between ideas of real and fake, nature and artifice, simulation and simulacra.
Pierson traces his impulse to rearrange these sign letters back to his interest in graphic design and photomontage. “Arranging things is my forte,” he says, “Maybe the only thing I’m a master of is putting things next to each other.” In fact, in many of his exhibitions today (including his upcoming exhibition at the Bass Museum in Miami Beach), Pierson draws from a variety of time periods past, rather than solely showcasing his new work. “The last couple of shows I’ve done have almost been me curating my [own] stuff,” he says.
For Pierson, it seems that the act of arranging is an art in and of itself. In September of 2023, Pierson opened Elliot Templeton Fine Arts on Henry Street in Manhattan’s Chinatown. With over 30 years of experience in the art world, in which he has regularly found himself performing various kind of curatorial work, the ever-expanding artist says he wanted “to be able to install shows all the time.” And miraculously, this exact opportunity presented itself when a local gallery owner told Pierson he was looking to sell. On a whim, Pierson agreed to take over, opening his gallery in the space that is now on its thirteenth exhibition, showcasing the art of Philadelphia magical realist John Brock Lear.
Born in Manoment, a small village in Plymouth, Massachusetts, Pierson says he had been to Provincetown several times before he came for the summer of 1980 alongside fellow Boston art students Mark Morrisroe and Stephen Tashjian (known professionally as Tabboo!)—but that before then, “it seemed more like it was all about going to the dunes in Jeeps and like, having a campfire or something. It wasn’t so much about walking through town.”
When the three came to town that summer to work, live, and perform, Pierson’s outlook changed. It was there he met fellow photographer David Armstrong, alongside other fixtures of the scene like John Waters. Pierson says he couldn’t actually afford to go back until 1990, but since then he has come to Provincetown nearly every summer.
On receiving the 2025 Distinguished Service in the Arts Award from FAWC, Pierson is honored, but wastes few words boasting. “I don’t think I knew that’s what it [was called],” he says and laughs, “Considering what I’ve just been blabbing to you about, it sounds appropriate, no? I feel like I can accept it with a straight face. I’m pleased to think someone was thinking of me in that way.”
Jack Pierson will be honored along with author Jayne Anne Phillips and art patrons Steve Corkin and Dan Maddalena at the Fine Arts Work Center’s Summer Awards Celebration on Saturday, July 12, 5:30 p.m. at the Pilgrim Monument and Provincetown Museum, 1 High Pole Hill Rd. The event, which includes dinner, is now sold-out, but there is an afterparty with dessert, drinks, and dancing , 8:30 – 10 p.m. Tickets ($60 – $150) are available online at fawc.org. For more information about the event, visit that website or call 508.487.9960.
