Jefferson Pinder, 2025-2026 Philip Guston Rome Prize Fellow in Visual Arts, has produced highly praised performance-based and multidisciplinary work for over a decade, creating interventions, videos, and objects that transport audiences to a speculative space where history's symbolism is negotiated. The body becomes a vessel for excavating the brutality and enduring traumas of the past through performances, historic reenactments, and stylized music videos. His work has been featured in numerous solo and group shows, including exhibitions at The Studio Museum in Harlem, the Wadsworth Athenaeum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut, The High Museum in Atlanta, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and Tate Modern in London, UK. He was an Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland from 2003–2011 and is currently Professor of Sculpture at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
How has your time in Rome shaped or shifted the direction of your project so far?
My time in Rome has offered a "reality check" about the complexity and difficulties of largely invisible populations. I am amazed at how homogeneous Rome is. Being here has helped me understand how much this city really needs diversity to be a great environment for people to thrive.
What part of your daily routine or environment at the Academy has most influenced you and your work?
There are few things better than having food prepared with love and attention every day. I never took it for granted. It was truly a joy.
Have any encounters—with people, places, or new information—opened up new paths in your research or practice in the past months?
I had the chance to work with Justin Randolph Thompson at the Recovery Plan in Florence, a research center dedicated to people and cultures of African descent. I have also had the chance to meet many "spazzini" who interact with pedestrians as they do their job on the streets.