I Want You

2008 - Film & Video (Film & Video)

Tony Labat


Commissioned by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and riffing on the “I Want You” army recruitment campaigns of the 1930s and 1940s, Labat asked Bay Area residents to interpret the slogan and make their own demands of the public in a series of live performance auditions. Given one minute to seize the voice of authority, contestants were asked to be the finger-pointing Uncle Sam, and their performances—as on the TV program American Idol —were voted on by a live audience. Five winners were chosen and their image and slogans appeared on posters throughout San Francisco to coincide with the presidential elections. A video of all auditions premiered at SFMOMA on election night.


Since the early 1980s, Cuban-born Tony Labat has been an important participant in the California performance and video scene. A pioneer in video installation, his work often identifies with the “outsider,” whether the artist or the immigrant and comments on displacement and marginalization. Labat has exhibited internationally in venues including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Laguna Art Museum; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels; the National Gallery of Poland; the Helsinki Museum of Art; the Tel Aviv Museum of Art; and the National Gallery of Greece, Athens.


Colors:



Awaiting Enacted
© » KADIST

Roman Ondak

2003

This work needs to be considered in relation to one of his performances during which people were made to queue in front of the Kunsthalle of Frankfurt in 2003 (Tate Collection)...

Slowed-down Journey
© » KADIST

Roman Ondak

2003

As the caption purposely admits, these drawings were made by friends of Ondák’s at home in Slovakia asked to interpret places he has journeyed to...

Mother Pig, Shushi Gallery, San Diego Performance
© » KADIST

Paul McCarthy

1983

McCarthy’s Mother Pig performance at Shushi Gallery in 1983 was the first time he used a set, a practice which came to characterize his later works...

Hubert Maga (perruque MAVA-musée d'art de la vie active)
© » KADIST

Meschac Gaba

2010

The headdresses, woven from artificial hair braids, symbolize historical icons including Martin Luther King, Kwame Nkrumah, Fela Kuti and King Guézo of Dahomey...

Related works featuring themes of: » Architecture's Effects, » Conceptual Art, » Cuba, » Engagement With Mass Media  
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No Title
© » KADIST

Félix González-Torres

1992

Behind the simplicity and beauty of this untitled photograph of a brilliantly-colored flowerbed by Félix González-Torres are two remarkable stories of love, loss, and resilience...

Map (from Uncertain Pilgrimage), 2006-2009
© » KADIST

Gareth Moore

2006

Uncertain Pilgrimage is an ongoing project in which Moore draws from his unplanned travels in recent years...

Tapitapultas
© » KADIST

Donna Conlon and Jonathan Harker

2012

In Tapitapultas (2012), Donna Conlon and Jonathan Harker comment on mass consumerism and pollution by way of a game they invented...

Teapot with shadow
© » KADIST

Hans-Peter Feldmann

The types of objects Feldmann is interested in collecting into serial photographic grids or artist’s books are often also found in three dimensional installations...

Other related works, blended automatically  
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No Title
© » KADIST

Félix González-Torres

1992

Behind the simplicity and beauty of this untitled photograph of a brilliantly-colored flowerbed by Félix González-Torres are two remarkable stories of love, loss, and resilience...

Map (from Uncertain Pilgrimage), 2006-2009
© » KADIST

Gareth Moore

2006

Uncertain Pilgrimage is an ongoing project in which Moore draws from his unplanned travels in recent years...

Pair of shoes / Shoes with eggs
© » KADIST

Hans-Peter Feldmann

The types of objects Feldmann is interested in collecting into serial photographic grids or artist’s books are often also found in three dimensional installations...

Related works sharing similar palette  
» see more

Leading Collector of Middle Eastern Art to Sell Dozens of Works at Sotheby’s - via ARTnews
© » LARRY'S LIST

Abdulrahman Al Zayani is selling more than 80 works by Middle East artists....

The Power of a Poem
© » ARTS EQUATOR

The Power of a Poem | ArtsEquator Skip to content Zakir Hossain, a celebrated poet and migrant worker in Singapore, wrote a poem, which sparked a response from the state...

The Nightwatch
© » KADIST

Francis Alÿs

2004

The Nightwatch , which is an ironic reference to the celebrated painting by Rembrandt, follows the course of a fox wandering among the celebrated collections of the National Portrait Gallery in London...

Under the bonnet: €300,000 Ferrari-funded restoration completed on 13th-century Cimabue fresco
© » THEARTNEWSPER

Under the bonnet: €300,000 Ferrari-funded restoration completed on 13th-century Cimabue fresco Art market Museums & heritage Exhibitions Books Podcasts Columns Technology Adventures with Van Gogh Search Search Conservation news Under the bonnet: €300,000 Ferrari-funded restoration completed on 13th-century Cimabue fresco Maestà di Assisi, located in the saint's home town, which survived a deadly earthquake in 1997, has been returned to its original luminosity James Imam 8 February 2024 Share Cimabue’s Madonna Enthroned with the Child, Four Angels and St Francis underwent two previous restorations: in the late 19th century and again in 1973 Tecnireco A fading fresco by the 13th-century artist Cimabue that survived a deadly earthquake 25 years ago has been returned to its original splendour following a €300,000 restoration funded by the luxury car manufacturer Ferrari...

Other works by: » Tony Labat  
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Related artist(s) to: Tony Labat » Bay Area, » Paul Kos  
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Sirens
© » KADIST

Paul Kos

1977

Taking its title from the eponymous mythological creature—famously featured as sea nymphs in Homer’s Odyssey...

Sound of Ice Melting
© » KADIST

Paul Kos

1970

Sound of Ice Melting is based on the ancient Zen Buddhist koan about the sound of one hand clapping...

Lightning
© » KADIST

Paul Kos

1976

Parked on the shoulder of a single lane highway running through a desert landscape, Marlene looks over her shoulder from inside the car at a fierce storm looming over a distant horizon...

Related works found in the same semantic group  
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M+ Museum Pulls Three Politically Charged Works From Exhibition Dedicated to Works from Swiss Collector, Spurring Speculation of Censorship - via ARTnews
© » LARRY'S LIST

The museum said the removal of the works, one of which references the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, were part of a routine rehang....

Kanye West's Teenage Artwork Was Reportedly Purchased by an Art Collector - via Vanity Fair
© » LARRY'S LIST

The pieces were initially appraised for between $16,000 and $23,000 on Antiques Roadshow....

Bullet
© » KADIST

Maya Watanabe

2021

Maya Watanabe’s video installation Bullet unfolds within the context of the Peruvian justice and forensic systems...

Missing Lebanese Wars, Linguistic
© » KADIST

The Atlas Group

1996

It is a little known fact that Lebanese historians were also gamblers during the war...