Barbara Shawcroft: BART Opening

Duration: 1

Year Published: 19761977

Complete Record: The can contains two roles each of approximately 700ft. Footage by Coni Beeson Silent First roll (On a smaller core, with labeled tape across it): First there are images from the art opening party at the Embarcadero Center in San Francisco. A band plays, people dance and talk, and there are shots of the bright yellow-orange fiber sculpture and its artist, Barabara Shawcroft. The next set of images is from the installation of the sculpture in the building. The sculpture is placed in an atrium, where it spans multiple floors. The artist and other workers are wearing hard-hats. The final sequence of images is of Shawcroft working on that same sculpture in what is likely her studio. Second roll (On a larger core, with unlabeled tape): Almost all of this footage is of Shawcroft working on the bright yellow-orange fiber sculpture in that same studio space. There is one section with a few other images: a man sitting behind a desk, talking, a quick image of an outdoor sculpture, two men talking inside the Embarcadero center, and a short clip of a man being interviewed there. NOTE: Barbara Shawcroft did have a sculpture installed in the Embarcadero BART station in 1978, that is mostly composed of the same bright yellow-orange rope, and is a sister sculpture to the one pictured here in the Embarcadero Center. Online, I found text from a book called “Art - In San Francisco Redevelopment areas” published in 1979 that lists a rope sculpture called “fellow legs” by Barbara Shawcroft at 3 Embarcadero Center. The sculpture installed at the BART station is called “legs.”