Tony Labat

October 13 2008

Tony Labat was born in Cuba and came to the United Stated at the age of 15 in 1966. He received his BFA (1978) and his MFA (1980) from the San Francisco Art Institute where he’s being teaching since 1985 and is currently Chair of the New Genres Department. He has exhibited internationally over the last 25 years. Mr. Labat has received numerous awards and grants and his work is in many private and public collections. Labat has developed a body of work in Performance, Video, Sculpture and Installation. His work has dealt with and continues his investigations with the body, popular culture, identity, urban relations, politics, and the media. In 2005 Labat had a survey exhibition of his work in conjunction with the publication of “Trust Me.” Recently his work was included in the Seville Bienal, California Video Exhibition at the Getty, Art/Life Exhibition at El Museo del Barrio, solo exhibitions at Queen's Nails Annex (Bulk: Social Space Project) and Gallery Paule Anglim (New Work). This fall, Labat has been commissioned to produce a public art project for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (I Want You Project), and his work will be in the upcoming California Biennial at the Orange County Museum of Art.

"LABAT (along with Chris Burden and Dan Graham, Lucille Ball and Ann Magnuson, Richard Pryor and Johnny Knoxville) should be a key figure in any history of artists using action to negotiate the role of media in constructing the various, often ephemeral, aesthetic, sexual, and political narratives producing and produced by bodies or their absence."--Bruce Hainley, Artforum, January 2006

Read our conversation with Tony