Babeth
Author
Nina Zurier
Decade
1970s
Tags
Activism Buddhism Filmmaking Publications
Punk Rock Sports
As a student at SFAI, Babeth VanLoo was so well known around campus that when this issue of the student paper was published, there was no need to identify her. She was born in the Netherlands, studied painting and design in Aachen, and performance and sculpture with Joseph Beuys in Düsseldorf. She came to SFAI in the mid-1970s to study filmmaking with George Kuchar; she married SFAI Humanities professor Ray Mondini. While a student she worked for the magazine Search and Destroy, and with her Bolex interviewed and filmed many of the SF punk bands and met other bands that came to town. Her film Berlin Wall and The Sex Pistols combines footage shot in SF with 1978 footage shot in Berlin. VanLoo has made a number of short films about artists, including Andy Warhol, Joseph Beuys, Nam June Paik, and Meredith Monk. Her films often deal with art, social engagement, and spirituality. In 2000, she founded the first Buddhist television broadcasting channel in the Western world (in the Netherlands) and is the director of the International Buddhist Film Festival. Her short film Arnold Schwarzenegger: The Art of Bodybuilding (1977–2019) is based on 16mm footage VanLoo shot as a student during the Mr. Olympia bodybuilding contest in San Francisco, with an interview of Schwarzenegger by Mondini. A 1977 episode of The Streets of San Francisco, “Dead Lift,” included Schwarzenegger as a bodybuilder and part-time model at SFAI who is suspected of murder. Schwarzenegger later became governor of California.
NZ
Secondary Connections
