Pacifico Silano is a lens-based appropriation artist based in New York City, where he graduated with an MFA from the School of Visual Arts in 2012. Exploring print culture, image circulation and questions of LGBT+ identity, his work is entirely composed of repurposed fragments from gay pornographic magazines of the 1970s and 80s – an era connecting the progressive legacies of sexual revolution with the advent of the devastating HIV/AIDS crisis.

Silano’s works have been exhibited in both group and solo shows at the likes of the Bronx Museum; Tacoma Art Museum; Museo Universitario del Chopo, Mexico City; The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; The Museum of Sex; The International Center for Photography, Houston Center for Photography; Baxter ST@CCNY; Rubber-Factory; Stellar Projects; Light Work; Melanie Flood Projects; Fragment Gallery; Luis De Jesus Gallery, Los Angeles; MONTI8, Rome; Powerhouse Arts & The Ace Hotel, New York; and the New York Art Book Fair at MOMA PS1. His work is also found in the permanent collection of The Museum of Modern Art, The Wellin Museum, The Ellsworth Kelly Foundation, and Museé de l’Elysée. Silano is a past recipient of the Aaron Siskin Foundation Fellowship, the NYFA 2025 Fellowship in Photography, and a finalist of the 2013 Aperture Foundation Portfolio Prize. He was shortlisted for the Paris Photo/Aperture First Book Award with his debut publication, I Wish I Never Saw the Sunshine, published by Loose Joints in 2021. Silano’s work is featured in Acne Studio’s  S/S 2026 women’s collection, which will debut at Paris Fashion Week this fall.