Born and raised in Plymouth, Massachusetts, Jack Pierson studied graphic design at MassArt in the early 80s, but one visit to Miami Beach in 1984 changed his life forever. With the AIDS epidemic just beginning to take its grim toll, Pierson, who’d been transitioning to photography, focused his camera on South Beach’s eclectic after-dark culture, considering the unseen people that inhabited the city and reflecting an escapist sun-bleached hedonism. He sometimes used personal artifacts such as postcards and poems to frame his collages of intimate portrait photography. Pierson’s art not only illustrates the impact that Miami had on his life but on gay culture as well. This show at the Bass revisits those years, and also presents a new commission by the artist, a collage of 10 by 14 feet. —Maggie Turner