Living in a country where reading involves interpreting thousands of characters from four different writing systems, it is interesting to reflect on the economy of the English-language alphabet. Isn't it just a little amazing that everything from Shakespeare to the newspaper you are holding in your hands right now, and all the thoughts and ideas therein, was written down using a grand total of 26 letters?
Jack Pierson is in love with letters, from A to Z, in a big way. The 40-year-old Californian collects old commercial signs. He dismantles these and uses his stock of letters to spell out his own messages, usually in the form of single, loaded words: "Lust," "Gone," "Blood" and so on. These are quite good, very real and very immediate, and they are all the rage on the market these days, setting records at auctions.
Pierson is now exhibiting at the Taka Ishii Gallery in Toshima Ward, Tokyo, for his fourth Japanese show in just over five years. The exhibition features one of his trademark letter pieces, five photographs and a couple of new three-dimensional works built using large, homemade letters.