Southeast Shear: Barraque Bridge Plaza, (sculpture).

Southeast Shear: Barraque Bridge Plaza, (sculpture).

Glassman, Stephen, sculptor.

Southeast Shear: Barraque Bridge Plaza, (sculpture).

Mixed media, including wood, metal, brick, water and light.

Sculpture: approx. 75 x 75 x 120 ft.

The sculpture integrates vertical and horizontal wooden poles with the remains of an 1887 commercial building. A reflecting waterway is including within the building section.

Outdoor Sculpture -- Arkansas -- Pine Bluff

Administered by Arts and Science Center for Southeast Arkansas, 701 Main Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas 71601

Located Northeast corner of Barraque and Pine Streets, Pine Bluff, Arkansas

The free-form abstract plaza sculpture covers two lots and one bulding. Approximately 20 tons of locally donated and treated pine logs plus donated steel tubing manufactured in Pine Bluff form the outline and substance of the sculpture. As vertical members of the structure, treated logs, laced together with high-strength steel cable thrust upward to 75 feet. Other logs, also secured with steel cable, together with galvanized steel tubing, horizontally connect vertical components with gentle curves, giving the illusion of a bridge. Some of the plaza pole structures terminate in the building's original concrete floor. In the interior of the historic building, there is a gravel-bottomed waterway.

As a geographic symbol, the plaza represents the juncture of southeast Arkansas' hilled piney woods and the nearby plane delta area. The interior waterway symbolizes the significance of the Delta's mighty Arkansas and Mississippi Rivers in the region's history, culture and economy.

A nearby plaque reads: Artists and Communities: America Creates for the Milennium/National Funders/Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation National Endowment for the Arts/Charles E. Culpeper Foundation / Rockefeller Brothers Fund/John S. and James L. Knight Foundation/Prudential Foundation Brimstone Fund/The Earle L. Mack Foundation/Southeast Shear: Barraque Bridge Plaza/Public Sculpture by Stepehen Glassman/Arkansas Host Site Project Funders/Arkansas Arts Council/Fifty for the Future City of Pine Bluff/Jefferson County Quorum Court/Pine Bluff Advertising and Tourism Promotion Commission/Mr. & Mrs. Ed Freeman/(followed by two column list of donors of goods and services).

IAS files contain brochure "Southeast Shear: Barraque Bridge Plaza," n.d., which shows the sculpture from various angles, and at night.

State of Arkansas, Department of Arkansas Heritage, Arkansas Historic Preservation Program, 2002.

The information provided about this artwork was compiled as part of the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Inventories of American Painting and Sculpture database, designed to provide descriptive and location information on artworks by American artists in public and private collections worldwide.

Inventories of American Painting and Sculpture, Smithsonian American Art Museum, P.O. Box 37012, MRC 970, Washington, D.C. 20013-7012

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