Big Art Loop

The Big Art Loop, a 34-mile trail encircling San Francisco that links more than 100 artworks, was launched by the Siljbrandij Foundation two years ago. The route includes the eastern shore, from Bayview to the Ferry Building, now populated with whimsical, cringey, and provocative sculptures. There are temporarily installed works funded by the Siljbrandij Foundation, and older public sculptures chosen through traditional civic processes involving neighborhood groups, public works officials, and arts commissioners. 

Siljbrandij Foundation-installed sculptures tend to share two traits: monumental scale – more than ten feet wide or tall – and psychedelic sensibility. Many were originally fabricated for Burning Man or Love Burn.  

In March, Friends of the Sunset Dunes successfully petitioned the Arts Commission to extend temporary installation of Siljbrandij Foundation-funded works located on the Big Art Loop for a year. A Friends of the Sunset Dunes survey found that while some sculptures drew ire, others, such as Spinning Rock by Zack Coffin, were popular. 

Art along the eastern shore is nested in a network of intersections and ports that reflect years of industrial history. Bright ship hulls breach the water behind century-old brick warehouses. Once a manufacturing employment center, tourists are now drawn to Oracle Park, Chase Center, and multiple public spaces.

Publicly funded sculptures on the Big Art Loop in Bayview include Promissory Notes, at the Southeast Community Center entrance at 1550 Evans Avenue. Made by Mildred Howard, a San Francisco–born artist, it’s a bronze rendition of three anklets standing stiffly on their sides, meant to evoke a ship’s hull. Blair Randall, San Francisco Public Utilities Commission Arts and Education Program Manager, who keeps an online archive, quoted Howard as saying, “the work will stand as an homage to the travels, trials, and perseverance of Bayview residents.” 

A 13-foot-tall African mask hung on a pole stands in the middle of the dock at India Basin Waterfront Park. The artwork, “Whispers of Waste,” is by Zulu Heru, 31, an Army veteran turned sculptor with a studio a block away from India Basin.  Made of 5,000 pounds of industrial materials, mostly recycled, it’s the 20th installation along the Big Art Loop.

Site-specific sculptures at Islais Creek include self-serious Islais, by Cliff Garten, which occupies a small traffic island and evokes a flowing, waterlike feeling. Its blue and white colors reflect the sky, clouds, nearby waterway, and an adjacent building. More didactic than interactive, Ship Shape Shifting Time at Islais Creek Park, by Nobuho Nagasawa, mimics the dimensions of cargo ships that commonly plied the creek in the 1950s, offering historic information.

Temporary installations in Mission Bay associated with the Siljbrandij Foundation include the overbearing Hulls, by Richard Deutsch, at Glen Haven Park, featuring elongated metal spires that resemble impatiently steepled fingers, their chrome patina suggesting a less-than-human touch. Nearby, at Mission Creek Park, is the inviting Louis, by DeWitt Godfrey, an interactive sculpture with a hive-like structure sporting a rusted patina, allowing observers to experience the artwork from inside. 

The bright red Dr. Fisherian’s Runaway Machine, by Chris Wollard and Kevin Conran, seems not to know why it’s there any more than you do, but it clearly defines Crane Cove Park as a place for children, play, and innocence. Local artist Bryan Tedrick produced Steelhead out of reclaimed metal from a Napa winery fire. His talent for creating flow from jagged individual pieces is apparent. The sight of fabricated salmon, located at the intersection of China Basin Street and Terry A Francois Boulevard, near the water, is sensible if not thrilling.

Two notable, permanent, municipal acquisitions are Olafur Eliasson’s Seeing Spheres, and Cupid’s Span by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. Monumental in size and experimental in concept, Seeing Spheres, with its mirror-like chrome and round forms, encourages play via reflections.

“Seeing Spheres offers a place to pause, where you see yourself from the outside, as a participant in society,” Eliasson stated in a press release.

Cupid’s Span, which rests just below the Bay Bridge thoroughfare, consists of a huge bow and arrow painted with red and gold enamel, its arrow piercing Rincon Park’s green grass, suggesting adulation for San Francisco.

South-of-Market hosts Corpus by Michael Christian, a San Francisco artist, and Atabey’s Treasure by El NiNo, alongside Aurora by Ruth Asawa, a San Francisco–based artist and educator. All are located roughly at The Embarcadero and Market Street, where ocean and water themes naturally concentrate. Asawa’s elegant examination of weaving and paper folding echoes the forms she discovered through her hallmark explorations of everyday materials in sculpture. Slightly goofy, Atabey’s Treasure is a large fish made of recycled pizza pans, which joyfully recalls the children’s book The Rainbow Fish. Corpus blends the nautical with the surreal in its domineering metal form.

Creating a narrative along Third Street, these works transform the historic waterfront from an elegy of labor and industry into a meditation on public space, neighborhood spirit, and contemporary art. This experimental curation won’t last forever; go look for yourself.