Jerry Kearns

Jerry Kearns was born in West Virginia in 1943. He spent his formative
years in California, graduating with an MFA from UC Santa Barbara in
1968. In that same year, he won the Rome Prize for Sculpture.

Moving to NYC in 1976, Kearns began working as a cultural activist and
artist with the Artist Meeting for Cultural Change (AMCC) and The Red
Herring Collective. Other members included Lucy R. Lippard, Joseph
Kosuth, Sarah Charlesworth, Andrew Menard, Rudolf Baranik and May
Stevens. In the late 70s, Kearns worked as a street photographer with two
civil rights groups, The Black United Front of Brooklyn and The Committee
Against Fort Apache in the Bronx. In October 1981, Lippard and Kearns
reported on these activities in their Artforum article, "Cashing a Wolf
Ticket."

In 1980, Kearns and Lippard began 5 years of close collaboration, writing
articles, organizing cultural events and curating exhibitions. That same
year, they joined in co-founding Political Art Documentation/Distribution
(PAD/D), a cultural activist group which was part of the Soho, East Village
scene in the 1980s. Among numerous activities, PAD/D organized a
nationwide cultural response to the US government's involvement in
Central America. During this period Kearns worked closely with Leon
Golub, Nancy Spero, Dennis Adams, Papo Colo, Jeanette Ingberman,
Afredo Jarr, Ida Applebroog, Sue Coe, Anton van Dalen, David
Wojnarowicz, Keith Herring, Judy Glantzman, Jane Dickson, and Charlie
Ahern, among others.

A 1985 a solo exhibition at EXIT ART, NYC, launched Kearns' painting
career. Since then he has produced 25 one person exhibitions; his prints
and paintings are represented in 33 museum and public collections,
including The New York Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum of
Modern Art, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Brooklyn
Museum, The Nationale Galerie, Berlin, The IVAM Centre, Valencia,
Spain, and The Western Gallery of Art, Perth, Australia. 2