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Synopsis

An ode to a bygone era, Jack Pierson: Night is a beautifully designed artist's book that counterposes the artist's signature use of found lettering with found publicity stills of Hollywood movie stars like Tony Curtis, Rock Hudson, and Elizabeth Taylor. Pierson makes declarative but ambiguous statements such as "trust", "greed", and "cry", and in this volume, which is designed to evoke the scrapbook in which these headshots were found, his statements deliver an uneasy interpretation of glamour. Printed on heavy paper stock, and accompanying Pierson's 2010 exhibition at Kukje Gallery in Seoul, Night is further embellished with an essay by novelist and memoirist Bruce Benderson. Describing Pierson's conjunction of word and image, Benderson writes: "the mere linking of the two creates a signpost that that stands in a direct way for Pierson's ownership of it... but in this case, the sign says, 'Private property: Come and See.'"