Jerry Ross Barrish’s tale is one of metamorphoses: First an activist bail bondsman in 1960s San Francisco, then an indie filmmaker, he now shapes society’s detritus into figures alive with feeling. “Don’t perish in jail
-Call Barrish for bail!”was a mantra for the student activists and civil rights protesters whose release would be secured by the successful young bondsman-with-a-conscience
-he also earned distinction for his film works
-but his life would change dramatically while walking on a beach. Seeing images in the plastic that had washed up, he began collecting and fashioning hundreds of sculptures from it, leading critics to hail Barrish as a junk-artist magician. His story
-teeming with prizefighters, gangsters, and other larger-than-life characters ranging from Willie Brown to Wim Wenders
-is captured in this brilliantly photographed documentary.
Plastic Man probes success, 20th-century art, dyslexia, and the struggle to find oneself through the lens of Barrish’s own, Jewish-working-class past, and ends with a monumental art commission.
WORLD PREMIEREIN ASSOCIATION WITH THE SAN FRANCISCO ART INSTITUTE
Sponsored by
Marin Art & Garden Center