Photographer and artist Jack Pierson opens exhibition at Regen Projects in Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES, CA.- You’ve gotta love Jack Pierson. In this his 19th comeback attempt in as many years he still relentlessly bangs a drum for the critical and curatorial attention that has eluded him since his move into big budget studio roles.

In the early days of the 90′s he rode into our collective conscience on an ecstatic wave that delivered him as grunge grandpa survivor. His early downtrodden exercises in blitheness seemed to speak so lyrically about lost youth AIDS and Beauty that we became blind as his overpowering self obsession morphed into a topiary of empty cultural signifiers. The International Cultural Elite (ICE) however did not. Once his salary became out of sync with the hobo-hemian legend he had created with the other crepe hangers of his ‘scene’ (he assiduously avoids the word ‘generation’, as they are all a few years much older than him) ‘It’ girl Nan Goldin, the late Mark Morrisroe, and the positively tubercular David Armstrong, only the most general public had any time for him. They showed up in droves though, to one treacly reassessment of his past glories after another, two tickets and a bag of popcorn in hand.

Jack Pierson, Poor Little Fool/ Lonesome Town, 2013. Two Folded pigment print, 84 x 64 inches (213.4 x 162.6 cm) each. Courtesy Regen Projects, Los Angeles © Jack Pierson.

Oblivious to the fact that museums and art journals had long since slammed the door in his face poor Pierson continued to chew the scenery and sweep the floor with the lace sleeves of his despair. All he was hearing were the sighs of an adoring audience and the clatter of coins in the coffers. Hollywood beckons only once, and those who can, often do pass irretrievably through it gates. It happened to Rudolph Valentino, it happened to Elvis Presley, those idols had the sense to crumble and die. Pierson merely crumples as one hack director after another, each of them hand picked by the desperate aging actor, sets him like a marionette to strut and fret on the tiny stage of his latest self inflicted whim. Good Lord! His last picture play was released only in Europe under the misleading title Jesus and Nazimova.

It is a tragedy we can no longer be sure which role was his. In any case in this latest stab at re-establishing relevancy he has opted for the one commercial Grand Guignol he had managed to avoid lo these 30 years: The Badass Motherfucker in a Blockbuster. At 50+ the once winsome troubadour will star as a grizzled anti-action hero in this his biggest budget disaster spectacle to date: THE END OF THE WORLD! As if to insure sang-froid devil-may-fuck you delivery, the recently remodeled Pierson will star AND direct himself in this sure to be crowd pleaser.

This just in: On January 12, 2013 (get it? 1•12•13) Regen Projects Hollywood opened, to a line of ticket holders who had been forming one day before, this newest Jack Pierson vehicle in which he plays X, a lonesome post-Rapture nihilist walking the landscape of his vanished youth looking for signs of Ricky Nelson amongst the debris of his discontent.

Tearing tickets and kicking ass.

Sayonara Documenta.

Pierson’s work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions including CAC Málaga, Spain; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland; MCA, Miami, Florida; and MCA, Chicago, Illinois. Extensive monographs and publications have been published about the work including Desire Despair, Angel Youth, and Jack Pierson.