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...

Sal Sem Carne
© » KADIST

Cildo Meireles

1975

Meireles, whose work often involves sound, refers to Sal Sem Carne (Salt Without Meat) as a “sound sculpture.” The printed images and sounds recorded on this vinyl record and it’s lithographed sleeve describe the massacre of the Krahó people of Brazil...

Untitled
© » KADIST

Barry McGee

Barry McGee’s Untitled is a collection of roughly fifty, framed photographs, paintings, and text pieces clustered together in corner...

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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...

Martin Creed | The Dick Institute
© » TATE EXHIBITIONS

Martin Creed

Martin Creed | The Dick Institute Experience the work of one of this country’s most ingenious, audacious and surprising artists at the Dick Institute ARTIST ROOMS Martin Creed presents highlights from the British artist’s thirty-year career...

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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...

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...

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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...

Hands Around In Yangon
© » KADIST

Moe Satt

2012

Hands Around in Yangon is both a secular and religious exploration of the meaning of hands in Myanmar...

Stones and Elephants
© » KADIST

Chia-Wei Hsu

2019

Stones and Elephants by Chia-Wei Hsu derives from the Malay literary classic The Hikayat Abdullah ...

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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...

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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....

Sotheby’s to Sell €11m Collection from the Hydra Home of Pauline Karpidas - via The Art Newspaper
© » LARRY'S LIST

The British patron’s annual meetings on the Greek Island were a “who’s who of the contemporary art world”...

Missing Lebanese Wars, Linguistic
© » KADIST

The Atlas Group

1996

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