BARRY GERSON
Artist/Filmmaker/Visionary
Barry Gerson was born into a Philadelphia cinema-owning family on the eve of World War II. He was drawn to the underground experimental film world of New York City in his 20s, where he established a reputation as a careful chronicler of the ways in which light intersects with time. He was a darling of the scene well into the 1980s, with major museum showings and top teaching gigs, only to drop out of the scene to better concentrate on his creativity. Over the years, his work has encompassed paintings with photo elements, film sculptures, and now writing.
In the Spring of 2024, Gerson was the recipient of an Anthology Film Archives retrospective, new film festival showings, and his first starring role in Don Barry, a feature film based on his ideas of art and film legacy.
It has always been about the Light. Just as
I have now found the Light to be about our healing.
Gerson's work gained renown for exploring the spiritual elements of light starting in the 1960s. Those films, alongside his paintings with photo elements, sculptures and film/light boxes, have been shown in galleries and installations ever since, including several Whitney Museum of American Art biennials and retrospectives in major cinema centers and museums around the globe. Gerson has taught filmmaking at a number of key institutions including Rhode Island School of Design, The School of The Art Institute of Chicago, Bard College and SUNY-Buffalo. Starting with The Neon Rose in the 1960s, Gerson has created dozens of iconic film works through the years, all now collected at Anthology Film Archives and other museums around the world.