Draft:Jerry Ross Barrish

Jerry Ross Barrish (born 23 July 1939) is a San Francisco artist known for his filmmaking and assemblage sculptures.

Early life
Barrish was born in 1939 in San Francisco, California, growing up in the Sunset district. After graduating from Abraham Lincoln High School, Barrish joined the Army and was stationed in Worms, Germany, for a total of three years. He returned home in 1961 and was invited by his father, a boxer from Chicago, to a release party for Mickey Cohen (the only person to ever be bailed out Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary). After being seated next to a bail bondsman, Abe Phillips, Barrish found himself in attorney Melvin Belli's office the very next day, where he signed his bond agent's papers. He would go on to post bail for protestors jailed during many now-iconic social movements including 1964's Auto Row Protests, Berkeley's Free Speech Movement of 1964-65, the San Francisco State University Strike (Third World Liberation Front Strikes) of 1968-69, 1969's People's Park Protest, and the Occupation of Alcatraz of 1969. This earned him the slogan, "Don't perish in jail, Call Barrish for bail!"

Filmmaking
Upon learning his GI Bill eligibility was due to expire, he applied as a sculptor to the San Francisco Art Institute. He studied with CB (Charles Betram) Johnson as an apprentice sculptor. Barrish switched his major to film and studied with James Broughton and George Kuchar, receiving his BFA in 1974 and his MFA in 1976. He placed a copy of his very first feature-length film, Dan’s Motel (1981), on the desk of Tom Luddy, director of the Telluride Film Festival. A few days later, Luddy called Barrish and told him to send the film to New Directors, New Films at Lincoln Center. The next film he wrote and directed was Recent Sorrows (1984) gained him access to the DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst) program in 1986, which earned him a six-month artist’s residency in Berlin. Upon his return to the United States, he shot his final film Shuttlecock (1989), which he'd written during this residency.

In Berlin, Barrish renewed his acquaintance with New German Cinema icon Wim Wenders (who he'd first met at 1982 Denver International Film Festival) and was cast in the role of the American film director in Wenders’ Palme d'Or winning Wings of Desire (1987). Barrish also acted in Until the End of the World (1991), also directed by Wenders, Rembrandt Laughing (1991), written and directed by Jon Jost, and I Married a Heathen (1974) directed by George Kuchar. He is the star of a documentary, Plastic Man: The Artful Life of Jerry Barrish (2014) directed by William Farley which details his practice and life story.

Assemblage
By chance, it was in Pacifica, during a routine stroll along the plastic-ridden beach in front of his home, that a solitary new practice catalyzed for Barrish: assemblage. By the 1980s and 90s, Barrish was joining an art form rich with practitioners identified by their use of materials and a certain sense of humor and irony that defined their work. But Barrish is clear on an important distinction within the art of assemblage. Jerry Barrish creates his own objects out of discarded plastic. In this sense Barrish is a sculptor, and as such he is quite distinct within the field of assemblage.

Barrish takes the practice one step further by bending, cutting, and painting plastic until it no longer resembles its original form, leaving something more sculptural. Precisely through this intervention, Barrish allows for the nuance and gesture that define and universalize his work. Imbued within every work are emotions and expressions he has observed over the course of his life, one in which a varied and immediate career overlapped a volatile and meteoric epoch in history.

Barrish also serves as artistic director of Sanchez Art Center, a community non-profit art center located in Pacifica, California. Since 2004, Barrish has coordinated many juried exhibitions, including The Left Coast Annual and 50/50 and works with local artists and curators on yearly exhibitions.

Barrish closed his bond business in 2013. He now works daily on his sculpture practice in his Mission-based studio.

Permanent collections
Berkeley Art Museum, University of California, Berkeley

Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, California

Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, California

San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose California

Di Rosa, Napa, California

Fresno Art Museum, Fresno, California

Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History, Santa Cruz, California

South Dakota Museum of Art, Brookings, South Dakota

Triton Museum of Art, Santa Clara, California

De Saisset Museum, University of Santa Clara, California

Public art commission
Bayview Horn, 2015 is located The Shipyard SF at Hunters Point, commissioned by Office of Community Investment and Infrastructure (successor to San Francisco Redevelopment Agency.)

== Selected Solo Sculpture Exhibitions == 2023  M. Stark Gallery, Half Moon Bay, California,“Jerry Ross Barrish: Protagonist”

2016  Transmission Gallery, Oakland, California,“Plastic Man”

2016  Smith Andersen Editions, Palo Alto, California, "Nuts & Chews”

2015  Studio Gallery, San Francisco, California, “Plastic Man”

2015  Mendocino Art Center, Nichols Gallery, Mendocino, California, “Jerry Ross Barrish”

2014  South Dakota Art Museum, Brookings, South Dakota, "Cast & Crew," (traveling)

2014  Loveland Museum/Gallery, Loveland, Colorado, "Cast & Crew," (traveling

2007  Schleswig-Holstein-Haus, Schwerin, Germany, “Ein Amerikaner in Schwerin”

2003  Dominican University of California, San Rafael, California, “Homage to Art & Music”

2002  Sierra College, “About the Ark,” Rocklin, California, “About the Ark,”

2002  South Dakota Art Museum, Brookings, South Dakota,  “Dames” (traveling)

University of South Dakota, Vermillion, South Dakota, "Dames"

Selected Group Sculpture Exhibitions
2023 The Randall Museum, San Francisco, California, “Inclusive Views”

2022  de Young Museum, San Francisco, California, "Pictures of People"

2020  South Dakota Art Museum, "50 Works for 50 Years: Collections Retrospective"

2019  SFMOMA Artists Gallery San Francisco, California, "Honoring America's Veterans at TPG Global"

2019  San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, California, Alumni Show, "ECHOES, From Here to There"

2017  San Luis Obispo Museum of Art, "California Sculpture Slam Biennial Exhibition"

2011  Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, California, Weborg Gallery, “New Acquisitions”

2009  Museum of Art and History, Santa Cruz, California, “Assemblage, Collage & Construction”

2008  SFMOMA Artists Gallery, San Francisco, California, “30th Anniversary Exhibition”

2005  Oakland Museum of California at City Center, “Shaping Possibility: Pacific Rim Invitational”

2004  SFMOMA Artists Gallery, San Francisco, California, “Furniture as Art”

2002  San Jose Art Museum, “Is the Medium the Message? Contemporary Art from Permanent Collection”

2000  University of California Santa Cruz, Cowell College, “The New Millennium Readymade, Even”

1999  University Art Museum, Berkeley, California,  “Fragments of the World, From Collage to Readymade”

1997- 1998  Oakland Museum of California,"Hello Again!  A New Wave of Recycled Art 	Design" (traveling)

Los Angeles Municipal Gallery, Barnsdall Park, Los Angeles, California

McAllen International Museum, McAllen, Texas

Vancouver Museum, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Independent Feature Films
Shuttlecock (1989) - World Premiere, Berlin International Film Festival, Forum, Berlin,Germany

Recent Sorrows (1984) - World Premiere, San Francisco International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, San Francisco, California

Dan's Motel (1981) - World Premiere, New Directors/New Films, Lincoln Center, New York City, New York

Retrospective Film Exhibitions
2015   Hof International Film Festival, Hof, Bavaria, Germany

2015   Roxie Cinema, San Francisco, California

2007  Schleswig-Holstein-Haus, Schwerin, Germany

2004  Hof International Film Festival, Hof, Bavaria, Germany

2003  Festival Internacional de Cinema da Figueira da Foz, Portugal

2002  South Dakota Art Museum, South Dakota State University,  Brookings, South Dakota

1998  Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, California

1991  The Museum of Modern Art, Cineprobe, New York City, New York

1990  Roxie Cinema, San Francisco, California

1986  DAAD, Arsenal, Berlin, West Germany

1986   Metropolis, Hamburg, West Germany

1986   German Film Museum, Frankfurt, West Germany

1979  The Cinematheque, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, California

Selected Film Festivals & Releases
1998 Berliner Künstlerprogramm des DAAD, Arsenal, Berlin, Germany

1992 Third Channel-TV, Munich, Frankfurt and Cologne, Germany

1991 Amerika Haus, Berlin, Germany

Arsenal, Berlin, Germany

The Museum of Modern Art, "Film Arts Foundation at Fifteen," New York, NY

1990  Rotterdam International Film Festival, Rotterdam, Holland

Houston International Film Festival, Houston, Texas

Cinequest Film Festival, San Jose, California

1989  Berlin International Film Festival, Berlin, West Germany

Florence Film Festival, Florence, Italy

Mill Valley Film Festival, Mill Valley, California

Uppsala Film Festival, Uppsala, Sweden

Göttingen Film Festival, Göttingen, West Germany

1985  Munich International Film Festival, Munich, West Germany

American Independent Film Festival, Amsterdam, Holland

Antwerp International Film Festival, Antwerp, Belgium

1984  Hof International Film Festival, Hof, West Germany

San Francisco International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, San Francisco

1983 "Film in the Cities," Minneapolis, Minnesota

Festival International de Cinema, Figueria da Foz, Portugal

Lisbon Cinematheque, Lisbon, Portugal

Florence Film Festival, Florence, Italy

Rotterdam International Film Festival, Rotterdam, Holland

Festival International du Nouveau Cinema, Montreal, Canada

1982  The Museum of Modern Art, "New Directors/New Films," New York City

Denver International Film Festival, Denver, Colorado

Mill Valley Film Festival, Mill Valley, California

Cinematheque, Athens, Greece

Hof International Film Festival, Hof, West Germany

1979  Edinburgh International Film Festival, Edinburgh, Scotland

Film Awards & Residency
1990   Foreign Critics' Choice, Rotterdam International  Film Festival, Rotterdam, Holland

1989  Jury's Choice, Cinequest Film Festival, San Jose, California

1986   DAAD Residency (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst), Berlin, Germany

1976  Director's Choice, Sinking Creek Film Celebration, North Carolina

1976  Juror's Award, San Francisco Art Institute Student Exhibition, San Francisco