If the facility looks more like a train station than an art gallery, it's because the temporary and improvised art gallery is in a train station. This photo by Sara Scanlan is one of many displaying the artistic scene on BART, the public train system in San Francisco. These happy, creative people joined together for two hours on Saturday for BART Basil 2021, an unauthorized art celebration. Here's how participant and all-around Renaissance woman Danielle Baskin describes it:
BART Basel. 🎨 We ride the train as a large group dressed as fancy art collectors, hopping off platforms to look at the art. We take turns playing gallery rep. We bring stanchions, champagne glasses, and have an arbitrary VIP section sponsored by a fake luxury architecture firm.
— Danielle Baskin (@djbaskin) November 18, 2021
The event was so spontaneous that one participant didn't know she was in the show until it started:
But by far my favorite exhibition was the woman who exhibited the head of her girlfriend. They had just flown in from Florida and had discovered BART Basel while transiting from SFO. This is truly the magic of transit-oriented gallery exhibition. pic.twitter.com/oHH3e3bijI
— Vincent Woo (@fulligin) December 6, 2021
Art galleries are typically quiet places, but subway systems are not. As you can see and hear in this video, public transportation was in no way slowed by the show: -via Super Punch