Jack Pierson & Pia Schachter
Bad Boys
Allston Skirt Gallery, Boston
October 4 - 26, 2002
Allston Skirt Gallery presents "Bad Boys", new Photography by Jack Pierson & Pia Schachter.
In a provocative and poignant collaborative effort by internationally recognized artist Jack Pierson and Boston's own Pia Schachter, "Bad Boys" presents photographic work by these two artists exploring the enigmatic allure of bad boys.
This two-person show expresses two distinct perspectives on the theme of contemporary young men and identity. Jack Pierson, whose work is well known from Provincetown to Paris, presents a simple group of photographs of men, each shot through with varying degrees of romance, desire, tease and pain. Pierson's take on the subject deals with the outer look or persona presented by his subject, as he is fixed by the viewer's gaze. The appeal of the naughty, or the dangerous, whether on a sexual, emotional or physical level, is at issue here.
Pia Schachter brings her camera to the same subject with a different view. She scrutinizes various images of "badness" as clues to the mystery that lies beneath the shell, commenting on our rush to pass judgment based on appearance and fashion, examining our responses to the exterior persona as well as imagining a very different sort of person hidden beneath the tough exterior. As Pia Schachter describes it: "The Bad Boys series gives us a chance to examine our relationship with today's 'angry young male.' Whether the reaction to them is a sexual lure, jealousy of the attention they receive, or the need to nurture them and look out for them, my work examines the enigmatic puzzle they pose."
Pia Schachter likes to pose riddles for the viewer directly; her sculptural grid of 74 photographs of young men who could be perceived as trouble because of the way they dress or the look in their eye is called "Six Bad Boys" because, as she asks: "out of these 74 males, which six are the real bad boys?" And her wall piece "Is That Him?" is comprised of 24 picture tags hanging from key rings on a white pegboard. Each tag shows a small color photograph of a young man. On the reverse, a small, personal promise has been penciled in by the artist, for example: "I would trust you with the car," or "I would listen to your music and try to hear what you hear." This work came out of the fact that Schachter gave an infant son up for adoption as a young teenager. "For years afterward," she explains, "I would wander through crowds -- like at the rock concert where I took these photos -- wondering whether each young lad I saw could be him. I would ask myself whether I would trust him enough to let him into my heart -- or to give him the keys to my house. The tags remind me of the I.D. labels that mothers put on their sons' belongings before sending them off to camp."
ALLSTON SKIRT GALLERY
450 Harrison Avenue, Boston, MA 02118
www.allstonskirt.com
