Flint Institute of Arts Exhibit Explores Images of Gay Identity

Self-Portrait of Robert Arrington

This past April, the Flint Institute of Arts (FIA) opened a new exhibit titled “Political and Personal: Images of Gay Identity”, featuring 24 total works of art from the Jack Pierson collection. Pierson (1913-1997), a Flint native, was an art collector who donated a total of 865 works to the FIA from 1979 to 1995. The exhibit now on display was developed by Eric Birkle, a former intern for the FIA and Lapeer native, who is now pursuing his Ph.D. in Art History, Visual Culture, and Curatorial Practice at York University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

“For this exhibition, we were really focused on the idea of his identity as a gay man,” Tracee Glab, Curator of Collections and Exhibitions at the FIA said. “The works that were selected all deal with aspects of that identity—from his public persona and activism to the gay male gaze, love, and attraction."”

The exhibit features works of art by both homosexual and heterosexual artists that span multiple decades throughout the 20th century. Told through the collection and story of Pierson, the exhibit offers a well-rounded perspective of the gay male identity during that time.

“There is a two-fold aim to this exhibit,” Glab said. “First is understanding that the majority of the collections we own, upwards of 98%, were donated by someone, hand-selected by someone and it reflects their personal passions, interests, thoughts and their life. That’s true for everyone, not just Jack Pierson. We wanted to show how important collectors are for a museum like us. Secondly, there is this really interesting imagery and artwork made by both gay artists and heterosexual artists from different time periods. It’s all very different so there’s not just one definition of what is gay art, or what is homoerotic art. There are a lot of different interpretations and I think the works on view reflect that.” 

The self-portrait of Robert Arrington  provides an excellent sneak preview into what you will find at the exhibit and perfectly encapsulates who Pierson was as a person, as a collector, and as a supporter of artists. The following below is a brief description of the piece, written by Birkle himself.

“Layered over the otherwise monochromatic image, this work prominently features an inverted hot pink triangle – a symbol first used in Nazi concentration camp badges to denote homosexual men (an inverted black triangle was typically used to denote lesbian prisoners).  While originally intended to shame the wearer, the pink triangle was reclaimed by gay rights activists in the late 20th century. In this work, Arrington uses the symbol to both impart his own sexual identity, and as a means of confronting the stigma directed at gay men during the 1980s AIDS epidemic. His facial expression and stance are equally unapologetic, appearing to lean directly on the glass encasing.

Particularly interested in self-portraits, Jack B. Pierson would often write to artists whose work he had already collected and request them. In some cases, artists would produce one-of-a-kind self-portraits for Pierson, viewing it as a mark of friendship. In the case of this print, following Pierson’s recent purchase of “the Cocteau” (also on view in this exhibition), Arrington responded to Pierson’s inquiry, offering it at low price and thanking him for his continued interest.”

“There are some art works in the exhibition that deal with artists reacting to the AIDS crisis and why the current president at the time, George Bush Sr., wasn’t doing anything about it,” Glab said. “Some of the works in the exhibition deal with that because it was very public but it was also something that was really hurting the gay community at the time, and other people as well. Pierson was a product of the 20th century. There were two major world wars, a civil rights movement, formations of labor unions in Flint, and much more. Jack Pierson was really interested in social justice and equal rights and his collection really reflects those issues.”

While only 24 pieces of Pierson’s collection are on display at the moment, you can find the rest online and pieces of Pierson’s collection are often on display in other exhibits. As mentioned earlier, Pierson is a Flint native who worked at General Motors (GM) before moving to New York City with his life-long partner Robert Martin Purcell.

“Pierson had a very fond place in his heart for Flint, probably because he grew up here and it’s also where he really came of age and explored who he was as a gay man,” Glab said. “In that way he always had that connection with us and kept it up throughout the years. Jack Pierson was really remarkable in that he gave so many pieces of work to the museum.”

On June 23rd, Birkle will be giving an educational lecture online titled “Men Laid Bare: Homosexual Bodies and Homophobic History”, which you can register for online. Glab was blown away by Birkle’s effort to create such a multi-dimensional exhibit that will leave visitors thinking and reflecting.

“I want to give Eric a lot of credit because he wrote all the labels, and he really took the time to research the history of the work, what it meant, the subject matter but he also did a great job interweaving Jack Pierson into it as well,” Glab said. “We don’t always know why Pierson might have collected the works he did but I think the works themselves are very well researched and very well contextualized to let people make up their own minds.”

The Museum is free to the public on Saturdays and follows all state and federal health guidelines and regulations. The exhibit is located in the Graphics Gallery and will close on July 11th. “Political and Personal: Images of Gay Identity” is one of many fantastic exhibits on display currently at the FIA.

This piece was written by Clayton Skinner, Communications Intern at Fresh Coast Perspective.