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...

The Simpson Verdict
© » KADIST

Kota Ezawa

2002

The Simpson Verdict is a three-minute animation by Kota Ezawa that portrays the reading of the verdict during the OJ Simpson trial, known as the “most publicized” criminal trial in history...

Irma Vep, The Last Breath
© » KADIST

Michelle Handelman

2015

Michelle Handelman’s video work Irma Vep, The Last Breath takes its inspiration from Musidora, a famous French silent film actress, and a character she played called Irma Vep, from the film Les Vampires (1915), directed by Louis Feuillade...

Related works featuring themes of: » Architecture's Effects, » Conceptual Art, » Cuba, » Engagement With Mass Media  
» see more

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...

Person with Pillow: Desire, Lust, Fate
© » KADIST

John Baldessari

1991

The voids in Baldessari’s painted photographs are simultaneously positive and negative spaces, both additive and subtractive...

Central Station
© » KADIST

Firenze Lai

2013

Central Station, Alignment, and Sumo are “situation portraits” that present whimsical characters within distorted and troubling worlds...

Other related works, blended automatically  
» see more

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...

Study for my Heroes in the Street (Stan)
© » KADIST

Ian Wallace

1986

Wallace says of his Heroes in the Street series, “The street is the site, metaphorically as well as in actuality, of all the forces of society and economics imploded upon the individual, who, moving within the dense forest of symbols of the modern city, can achieve the status of the heroic.” The hero in Study for my Heroes in the Street (Stan) is the photoconceptual artist Stan Douglas, who is depicted here (and also included in the Kadist Collection) as an archetypal figure restlessly drifting the streets of the modern world...

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...

Top Art Auction Houses: A Comprehensive Look at Titans of the Art World
© » ART CENTRON

Top Art Auction Houses: A Comprehensive Look at Titans of the Art World - Artcentron Home » Top Art Auction Houses: A Comprehensive Look at Titans of the Art World ART AUCTION Feb 9, 2024 Ξ Leave a comment Top Art Auction Houses: A Comprehensive Look at Titans of the Art World posted by ARTCENTRON Christie’s is one of the top art auction houses in the world...

Bab Sebta (Ceuta’s Gate)
© » KADIST

Randa Maroufi

2019

Randa Maroufi’s Bab Sebta , is named after a Spanish enclave in Morocco, Ceuta...

Other works by: » Tony Labat  
» see more

Related artist(s) to: Tony Labat » Bay Area, » Paul Kos  
» see more

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  
» see more

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....

WTEIA3
© » KADIST

Daniel Boyd

2017

Daniel Boyd’s work WTEIA3 is part of a series of paintings that reference the stick charts used by indigenous communities on the Marshall Islands...

White Raven
© » EVEN MAGAZINE

This essay appeared in Even no...