Pioneer Works Announces Jordan Eagles: Bases Loaded
New York, NY, March 10, 2026—Pioneer Works is pleased to present Bases Loaded, an exhibition by Jordan Eagles. The artist has explored both the aesthetic qualities and ethical implications of blood since the late 1990s, throughout a practice that has spanned installation, sculpture, photography, and painting. Within the exhibition, baseball—a sport often deemed “America’s pastime”—becomes a canvas to explore divisive notions of team and identity within our current society.
A lifelong fan of the New York Mets, Eagles drew inspiration from the T-shirts routinely offered to blood donors at Citi Field, emblazoned with the slogan, “The Mets are in our blood.” Although he inherited a love for the baseball team from his family, the artist is prohibited from participating in its organized blood drives due to medical policies that discriminate against gay men. For him, the slogan prompted a complicated question, “What is in our blood? Who is allowed to belong on a team, or in a family and society?”
For Bases Loaded, Eagles sourced the giveaway T-shirts, cropping and splattering them with blood drawn from an HIV-positive gay man as a rebuttal against pervasive biases against queer bodies and sexual preferences. Arranged in groupings separated by color that recall the offensive and defensive teams on a baseball diamond, the shirts also echo the polarization of America into “red” and “blue” states. In the artist’s words, “These shirts evoke themes of team, tribe, and affiliation.”
He continues: "Baseball culture frames adolescent sexual exploration—in terms that equate ‘first base’ as kissing, ‘second base’ as further intimacy, and so forth. In gay culture, positions like pitcher and catcher become metaphors for sexual roles; the descriptors themselves can become stigmatizing, perpetuating differences as negative and less than. My work weaves baseball into the broader tapestry of identity and sexual formation.”
Surrounding these shirts is a series of resin sculptures, featuring family ephemera and medical detritus cast in the shape of a home plate. These objects include childhood photographs of Eagles donning Mets gear, many in tender embrace with his father; personal protective equipment such as black nitrile gloves, baby blue medical scrubs, and face guards that also recall the umpire’s uniform; and vials of blood drawn from the artist, his father, and a friend.
The sculptures are further accompanied by large-scale, wall-mounted reproductions of various New York Post covers, which reinterpret sensationalized headlines related to Mets star player Mike Piazza’s sexuality as well as the rivalry between New York’s baseball teams. Simultaneously personal and political, Bases Loaded viscerally complicates the innocuous facade of team sports, confronting viewers with blood that is often deemed tainted and unwanted.
Jordan Eagles: Bases Loaded is curated by Gabriel Florenz. It is supported, in part, is supported in part by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and by public funds from New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in Partnership with the City Council and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
About the artist
Jordan Eagles (b. 1977) is an artist who has been exploring the aesthetics and ethics of blood as an artistic medium since the late 1990s. His works are held in numerous private and public collections, including the Addison Gallery of American Art, Everson Museum of Art, Peabody Essex Museum, Princeton University Art Museum, University of Michigan Museum of Art, and Wellcome Collection. Based in New York, Eagles has presented exhibitions, installations, and public programs at institutions that include the Getty (Los Angeles, CA), High Museum of Art (Atlanta, GA), The Andy Warhol Museum (Pittsburgh, PA), Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (Alabama), The High Line (New York, NY), and Hammer Museum (Los Angeles, CA). The artist also collaborated with the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene on NYC Blood Sure and—in partnership with GMHC and FCB Health—is a co-founder of Blood Equality.
About Pioneer Works
Pioneer Works (PW) is an artist and scientist-led 501(c)(3) nonprofit cultural center in Red Hook, Brooklyn, that fosters innovative thinking through the visual and performing arts, technology, music, and science. We support onsite production through our science, design, recording, and ceramics studios; media, virtual environment, and technology labs; darkroom; and garden. Multi-disciplinary programs, exhibitions, residencies, and performances are presented to the public, of which the majority are free.
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