Biography

Born in New York in 1968, John Pilson received a BFA from Sarah Lawrence College in 1991 and an MFA from Yale University in 1993. He began his career as a photographer of portraits set against bland corporate backgrounds. His work was first exhibited in the 1994 group show Building, Dwelling, Thinking at the Lowinsky Gallery in New York. Pilson’s photographs taken from 1994 to 2000 while working night shifts for a Manhattan investment bank were recently published in the book Integra in 2006. Pilson’s transition to multichannel video installations in 2000 resulted in short films that use these corporate environments as backdrops for men in suits to behave absurdly or humorously, to misuse the space and thereby to introduce into it creativity and individuality. That year, he participated in the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s artist-in-residence program and produced the video Above the Grid. A meditation on the hidden unconscious of the office environment, set in the World Trade Center, Above the Grid was included in the exhibition Greater New York at P.S. 1 in New York that same year. His film St. Denis (2003) explores human behavior within the corporate environment of a New York building with many historical stratum: luxury hotel, design shop, Marcel Duchamp’s studio, and now office building. Several of his more recent works reveal lively activities unfolding within architectural spaces that instinctually call for more sober, routine decorum. For example, in London Cast (2005), a bombastic dramatic monologue unfolds within a mundane domestic interior and, in Wisdom and Charisma (2006), men in corporate suits congregate around a boardroom table to immerse themselves in a suspenseful game of Dungeons and Dragons. Pilson has had solo exhibitions at Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery in New York (2001, 2003, 2005, and 2006), Galleria Raucci/Santamaria in Naples (2001 and 2005), Annet Gelink Gallery in Amsterdam (2002), and Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati (2007), among others. His work has appeared in the group exhibitions Open Ends: Minimalism and After at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (2000), Venice Biennale (2001), Moving Pictures (2002) and Shapes of Space (2007) at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, The Moderns at Castello di Rivoli Italy (2003), and Time Frame at P.S. 1 (2006). Pilson has received the special prize for young artists at the Venice Biennale (2001), the Penny McCall Foundation Award (2001), and the Bâloise Art Prize at Art 33 Basel (2002). Since 2002, he has taught at Bard College, the New York School of Visual Arts, and Yale University. Over the past decade, Pilson has also curated projects at 1000 Eventi Gallery in Milan (2002), Tracey Lawrence Gallery in Vancouver (2006), and Independent Film Channel Theater in New York (2007). He lives and works in New York.