Jack Pierson (b. 1960)

Youicide is an early example of Pierson's most iconic and recognizable sculptural installations. As member of the "Scatter Group" in New York Pierson, alongside artists such other as Cady Noland and Karen Kilimnik, broke away from the pre-existing glamour dominating the art world in the 1980s and began to explore the detritus of pop culture through sculptural installations comprised of found materials. The letterforms works are born of this same idea, but with the trigger of visual vocabulary. Arranged into dramatic words or phrases, the artist confronts his viewer with both the visual meaning associated with the word and well as the pure aesthetic arrangement of the various elements of recycled media. Uniquely styled and sourced letters clash to create a word, and an overarching concept - mirroring the evocation in the viewer of disparate themes constantly shifting in a larger meaning that never fully fixes. As Pierson himself suggests, his work "documents the disaster inherent in the search for glamour."