Jack Pierson: The Miami Years

Themes of desire, memory and transience take on new resonance in a survey that considers how Miami Beach shaped the art of Jack Pierson. Known for photography, sculpture and installations that blur distinctions between fine art and popular culture, Pierson came of age alongside contemporaries such as Nan Goldin and David Armstrong, chronicling queer life and bohemian culture in the late twentieth century.

Jack Pierson: The Miami Years at The Bass on Miami Beach traces the artist’s first extended stay in the city during the winter of 1984, a period of professional experimentation and personal discovery. The vibrancy of South Beach’s queer nightlife, coupled with inexpensive apartments and thrift-store finds, fueled an undercurrent of wanderlust and escapism that would echo throughout Pierson’s practice. Miami’s transformation during the 1980s, its Art Deco revival, emerging celebrity culture and growing art scene, provided a backdrop that both liberated and inspired his work.

The exhibition culminates with ARRAY (MIAMI), a newly commissioned ten-by-fourteen-foot installation that layers printed ephemera with Pierson’s own photographs and works on paper. Juxtaposing nostalgia with immediacy, the piece highlights the city’s lasting imprint on the artist’s aesthetic. Curated by James Voorhies, the presentation underscores Miami’s enduring role as a catalyst for Pierson’s art and its intersections with fashion and contemporary culture.

Jack Pierson (b. 1960) is an American artist whose work spans photography, sculpture, drawing, painting and installation. His practice explores themes of longing, loss and the passage of time, often incorporating found objects and fragments of language. Pierson’s work is held in major museum collections including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Guggenheim Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.