Sarah Pierce (b.1968, Connecticut) is based in Dublin. Since 2003, she has used the term ‘The Metropolitan Complex’ to describe her work. Despite its institutional resonance, this title does not signify an organisation. Instead, it demonstrates Pierce’s broad understanding of cultural work, articulated through various working methods, involving performances, interviews, archives, exhibitions and self-publishing.

Selected exhibitions in 2011 include: A Terrible Beauty is Born, 11th Biennale de Lyon; Push and Pull, Tate Modern, London and Mumok, Vienna; Research Program, Charlottenborg Kunsthal, Copenhagen; Appeal for Alternatives, Stiftung Kunstsammlung Nordhein-Westfalen K21+K20, Düsseldorf; and We are Grammar, Pratt, Manhattan. Her work is appearing as part of the exhibition Anti-establishment in 2012 at the CCS Hessel Museum at Bard College, where she was resident artist in 2011; and at the NCAD Gallery in Dublin as part of a major commission between 2009–2012 by Sarah Glennie for the Irish Film Institute.

Sketches of Universal History (2012), Sarah Pierce’s first artist publication, edited by Rike Frank, is co-published by Book Works and The Showroom.