OPEN SPACE

………………………………………………..”Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.” - André Gide……………

On November 4, we’ll be screening two democracy-themed projects by Bay Area artists. Chris Sollars’ documentary C RED BLUE J explores the red state/blue state divide of 2004, as Chris juggles his beliefs with those of a sister working for the Bush administration, a born-again Christian father, and a lesbian mother. I Want You (Auditions) is Tony Labat’s new work, culled from footage of the original I WANT YOU performances. I asked them to interview each other for the blog & they typed their conversation together in real time in Tony’s studio Weds afternoon. Chris & Tony, thanks! and xxxooo, SS

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2:00 PM Chris leaves his house at 21st and Shotwell. Tries to go to the Mission post office to mail a DVD of C RED BLUE J to Kentucky and Portland, Oregon.

2:03 PM At the post office.  Only two postal workers and all self-service equipment disconnected and missing. Worst post office in the city and possibly the country.

2:09 PM Chris rides past construction at Mission and Cesar Chavez (Army) on the sidewalk where Tony Labat recorded immigrant workers from his studio across the street. The workers are no longer here but there is an ISO container with pipes attached.

2:11 PM Chris rings the Buzzer for Tony’s Studio and enters the building.

2:13 PM Tony offers Chris a beer and sits down to complete an email. Chris picks up the California Biennial Catalogue. It includes imagery of Tony’s surveillance of immigrant workers, a video still of a tank passing on a train (Blur 2007), and a photo of Tony standing next to a Wax Museum sculpture of Fidel Castro.

2:15 PM Tony “NO MORE JFK!” I am coordinating my flight with a gallery I am showing at in January and the last time I flew into JFK it cost me five grand for holding a Cuban passport and an American green card.

2:20 PM As Chris types Tony unloads a clip from his Black pellet gun, firing around the studio.

2:25 PM The phone Rings. Chris laughs…Tony shouts “TIMMY what do you think of Chris? Chris and I are think-tanking for this writing about both our projects for SFMOMA.”

2:57 PM Chris is just making up the time-lapse, but that’s okay, that’s the nature of time…impressed by his skills at typing, I’m a one finger (or two) typist…the phone rings it is Jennifer Locke…she is letting me know that she has cleared the problem with my check from St Mary’s College…Chris has a nice little gallery…Jennifer says “don’t say little.” Why? “Because he may be a little sensitive about size.” Am I getting my money? Yes…it was a mistake so it was a good thing you called me…Thanks Jennifer…

3:06 PM Chris asks about my sketch for an installation, he thinks that it looks like a voting booth…I find that very ironic…

3:07 PM Chris, Why did you make C RED BLUE J?

3:10 PM Just like political debates, before addressing the current question I will first address the comment made earlier, “Little”:  The exhibition space of 667 Shotwell is compromised by existing in a private home.

3:11 PM Interrupted by Tony swinging a dirty towel around the studio swatting flies. Caliber and quality of works: from democratic dinners voted by and prepared by the People with Jerome Waag, the whole backroom of 667 Shotwell turned into an XMAS present to sit on Santa’s lap (with Pat Rock as Santa) Brian Storts, or the 50cent beer machine in the same room a couple years later by Rock and Storts, and most recently the show 10 year itch of SF underground music (videos, outfits, posters by John Dwyer, T.I.T.S, Numbers, Erick Landmark, and Mike Donovan of Sic Alps amongst others. “Little” in size, but busting at the seams.

3:18 PM OK Tony is now done with that towel. Anyway a lot of the music in C RED BLUE J is by John Dwyer and I integrated it into the film since I was listening to his music all during the past four—

3:20 PM But Chris…Why did you make C RED BLUE J ?

3:21 PM Probably as a way to cope with my sister… “Jennifer” working for BUSH. Turn it into something positive. To have a window into her life and ideology and to look at how she could work for HIM after the way we grew up. Mom is a lesbian. I always thought it ironic or fitting that here I am an artist in SF and she is working for Bush in DC… couldn’t be much more split than that. Family is often where we are confronted with opposing Political discourse.

3:23 PM RING Tony: Did you vote for Obama? You did already? Oh come on…

3:24 PM Felipe: “Chris, you have a nice ass”

3:25 PM Tony speaking in Spanish so as to hide his conversation from Chris…NUMERO UNO… Miami… XMAS… get Mom to LA… Fantasy…

3:25 PM “Havana to Miami, No way …then I am involved with Homeland Security again..”

3:31 PM Tony puts in the DVD for I WANT YOU.

C The HD makes them look as good as politicians on TV. Did you change the order in the editing?

T The order happened naturally. I wondered if it was going to have to be edited, but the order was so organic and natural I stayed with it.

C This gives new meaning to SPOT Light.

T The performer can’t see us, just the light and that darkness. And the X on the floor.

C It also almost feels like an interrogation. How was the project publicized?

T It was listed online, on Facebook, Craigslist, and with posters. This generation is protesting more online than in the streets. I wanted to create a space for this NEED to demonstrate. Narcissism seems to be the nature today. In front of the camera but without the voice.

C I keep thinking that as our world becomes more and more digital I need to stay physical too. Tell me a little more about the I WANT YOU process.

T Part one: private auditions in front of the judges. Part two: I took myself out and the audience became the judges, American Idol/The Gong Show style. Part two became the spectacle. When I watched I kept thinking of what lines would be good for the posters. And was the audience rewarding the performance or the message? Part three will happen Monday Nov 3, when the posters of the winners go up all over town.

C Your film is totally inclusive. The good, the bad, the ugly; it also reminds me of the structure of the Democratic Convention when they invited average workers to speak their concerns, no matter how scripted.

T The posters come from the idea of common man propaganda. They use the voice of the everyday, like the participants. Similar to Joe the Plumber. Joe the Plumber is symbolic, but it didn’t work because it is Fake. Not a Joe, not a plumber.

C The symbol is effective though…

T But once Joe became tangible there was disappointment. Same with Sarah Palin: the “Hockey Mom” who then shops at Bloomingdales.

C Hypocrisy.  I WANT YOU is also similar to your work as a performer on the Gong Show. You went from participant to host. What year was that?

T 1978

C What month? (Chris is thinking that his sister was born that same year.)

T Ehhh?

C What season? Jennifer was born in June.

T In the Fall.

C Tony, watching I WANT YOU, I can’t help but think about performance and being on stage. I moved here in 1999 from the east coast, and one thing I wanted to ask you about is Performance. I myself feel like I make Actions, not… “I want to Perform”. For example, at an event put on by Brian Storts in March 1999, I wanted to intervene, and not be on stage. A lot of the artists I was meeting at that time were putting on performance events. One after the other…Perform…My audience for my actions has always been in the streets. It might not be as prevalent as it was in 1999, but why all this performance art in San Francisco?

T Wow…That’s IRONIC. I came to San Francisco in 1975 to study out here. Chris Burden, Tom Marioni, Terry Fox, Howard Fried, and I, I think we all were against “the stage.” Theater vs performance. In Studio 9 at SFAI in the 1970s there were all of these performances going on. At my core was a desire to deconstruct and investigate this apparatus, “the stage.” It was around this time I went on the Gong Show. I saw the Gong Show as a bridge between performance art and TV/theater on stage. What would it be like to have Karen Finley or Tony Labat on the Gong Show. Total subversion of the stage. I wanted to consider the potential of these other venues/ platforms or spaces. Karen and myself were using the stage as a platform. The stage is a pedestal. Just like in sculpture. Here in the film the stage and X marks the spot, becomes a soapbox/platform.

ON THE TV: A person bound in brown with tape around body is placed on the X on stage. There is a total breakdown with this. And The person starts screaching and screaming. The person walks to the edge of the stage and the crew comes back to keep the individual from falling off. The bound person falls to the floor and continues to thrash back and forth with screeching.

T The museum staff didn’t know how to handle this person…when to end or stop it. This person became a liability. Is this person in torture or is this performance? What do we do? The only way to end it in this context was, after several minutes, for me to say “thank you” and she stopped…I don’t know who it was. It seemed as if she wanted it to stop but was dependent on the context of the situation for it to end. It could have gone on for hours. This trust between performer and audience is similar to Acconci’s early works. Potential energy, possibility, and the “what if”…What if this energy is transferred… (more…)

Posted by Suzanne under Film, Live Art, Magazine, Profiles + Interviews | Tags: C Red Blue J, Chris Sollars, I WANT YOU, Tony Labat

Tony Labat, I WANT YOU, a project for Live Art at SFMOMA. Design by MendeDesign. Photography by George Westcot.

Performer, artist, ‘pleasure activist,’ and professional dominatrix Sadie Lune was the top-scoring I WANT YOU winner, with one of the most directly activist performances of the night. If you haven’t been watching the blog, back on September 11th,  Tony Labat staged an event in our Wattis Theater, riffing on the iconic “I Want You” army recruitment campaigns, asking Bay Area residents to make their own demands of the public in live performances, with the audience determining the five winners via scantron-style voting. The winners have had their slogans—and their likenesses—transformed into posters which are going up all over town this week.

Now of course SFMOMA can’t take an endorsement position on any local initiatives, but I’m glad to post Sadie’s video of her own winning performance, shot that night in the theater to a rowdy and supportive constituency:

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Sadie Lune is a multi-media artist, absurdist, sex worker and pleasure activist. She has performed with revolutionary sex artists Carol Queen, Annie Sprinkle, and Nina Hartley and is a co-founder of Paul Reubens Day. Sadie draws the comic series “Saturn Returns Komyx” for $pread magazine, and is working on an anthology of essays by the personal partners of sex workers. Her short film “Yum” won the People’s Choice award in the 2007 Good Vibrations Amateur Erotic Film Competition. Interactive interventionist social art totally gives Sadie a boner. She’s a recent convert to occasional blogging: writing sporadically for the comic blog BreakUp Girl as well as her own three (!) blogs: Sadie Wants a Wife, Whores in the Woods, and Working Hearts. Sadie identifies as a mermaid and is currently looking for collaborators, patrons, and a wife. She aspires to show more work in streets and museums. Sadie lives in the Mission District of San Francisco with her three snakes and her beloved roommate, Irene.

Posted by Suzanne under Live Art | Tags: AND THE WINNERS ARE, I WANT YOU, Sadie Lune, Tony Labat, YES ON PROP K

Tony Labat, I WANT YOU, a project for Live Art at SFMOMA. Design by MendeDesign. Photography by George Westcot.

If you recall, back in September Tony Labat staged an event in the Wattis Theater, riffing on the iconic “I Want You” army recruitment campaigns, asking Bay Area residents to make their own demands of the public in live performances, with the audience determining the five winners via scantron-style voting. The winners have had their slogans—and their likenesses—transformed into posters which are going up all over town next week. Congratulations Kali!

Kali Eichen has an extensive background in acting, dance, improvisation, and educational and technical theater. She is a writer who dabbles in short fiction, food blogging, and recipe development. Currently, she makes her living as a pastry chef – specializing in bacon desserts and caricature cakes.

Posted by Suzanne under Live Art | Tags: AND THE WINNERS ARE, I WANT YOU, Kali Eichen, my mother told me not to talk to strangers let alone, smile at them, Tony Labat

Tony Labat, I WANT YOU, a project for Live Art at SFMOMA. Design by MendeDesign. Photography by George Westcot.

Back on September 11th,  Tony Labat staged an event in the Wattis Theater, riffing on the iconic “I Want You” army recruitment campaigns, asking Bay Area residents to make their own demands of the public in live performances, with the audience determining the five winners via scantron-style voting. The winners have had their slogans—and their likenesses—transformed into posters which are going up all over town next week.

Hazel White is a poet, journalist, and author; most of her work addresses landscape and the poetics of habitation. More privately, until now—the mouse rushed to the email “send” button, next thing she was at the I Want You auditions—she’s a transracially adoptive parent, and a fledgling anti-racism activist. She thanks her partner, her son, and her son’s birthfamily, and The UNtraining organization for helping her to explore racism and to find her urgent new voice.

Posted by Suzanne under Live Art | Tags: AND THE WINNERS ARE, Hazel White, I WANT YOU, think before you speak, Tony Labat

Tony Labat, I WANT YOU, a project for Live Art at SFMOMA. Design by MendeDesign. Photography by George Westcot.

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Beth Lisick has published poems, essays, and a short fiction collection; she wrote a weekly nightlife column for SF Gate for eight years. Her stage and screen collaborations with writer/performer Tara Jepsen have yielded some uncomfortable moments, most recently the short film Diving for Pearls. Beth co-organizes the Porchlight Storytelling Series, a monthly show for amateur storytellers in San Francisco. Her book Everybody Into the Pool was a New York Times bestseller; her latest book about her adventures in the self-help biz is called Helping Me Help Myself: One Skeptic, 10 Self-Help Gurus, and a Year on the Brink of the Comfort Zone.

Tara Jepsen is a writer and performer from San Francisco. She’s toured extensively with the all-female cabaret Sister Spit’s Rambling Road Show, and the short film Diving for Pearls (in collaboration with Beth Lisick), won “Most Innovative Short”  at the Seattle Lesbian and Gay Film Festival (2004). She co-curates and co-hosts San Francisco’s longest running queer open mic, K’vetsh, with Kirk Read. Tara recently completed the first run of her live stage show, written and performed with Beth Lisick, Getting in on the Ground Floor and Staying There.

Don and Phil, or R. Donald Nash and Phil Spalding, hail from San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood, where they have been running their boutique design firm for over thirty years. They’ve worked with princes and princesses, real and figurative, and aren’t afraid to nudge a client toward a more adventurous chair. Though they’ve never fallen on the same side of the great Hummel vs. Lladro debate, they do agree on Italian opera, convertibles (preferably silver and Mercedes), and their shih tzus Betty and Veronica.

Posted by Suzanne under Live Art | Tags: AND THE WINNERS ARE, Beth Lisick, Don & Phil, I WANT YOU, Tara Jepsen, Tony Labat

Tony Labat, I WANT YOU, a project for Live Art at SFMOMA. Design by MendeDesign. Photography by George Westcot.

If you recall, back in September Tony Labat staged an event in the Wattis Theater, riffing on the iconic “I Want You” army recruitment campaigns, asking Bay Area residents to make their own demands of the public in live performances, with the audience determining the five winners via scantron-style voting. The winners have had their slogans—and their likenesses—transformed into posters which are going up all over town next week. And all over the blog in coming days.

This is Bird, a.k.a., Nicole Mills-Novoa:

“Hola, mi amo Nicole but my friends call me Bird.  I love making puppets, singing the blues, writing short plays, I love mayonaise, falling in love, drinking earl grey tea with honey from sweet tea cups, whales, pandas, the Giant Saterniid Moths, Jazz, creating my very own personal mythologies, lasagna, speaking my mind, watching old Italian movies such as The Bicycle Thief, I love playing records, big wicker baskets filled with yarn, old log cabins that smell of wood burning stoves, true social justice, living by the Girl Scout Law, reading books in my over stuffed chair, glasses of Makers Mark on the rocks, going to rock shows, saying and hearing the things that no one wants to say or hear, living on sailboats, old ladies holding hands in the park, compasses, old suit cases with secret lives, hearing and telling stories, and bicycles with baskets.”

Posted by Suzanne under Live Art | Tags: AND THE WINNERS ARE, Bird, handpuppets, I WANT YOU, Nicole Mills-Nova, Tony Labat

Last Thursday eve was round two of Tony Labat’s I WANT YOU project: They came, they performed, we scored, and five winners were chosen from the original pool of 54, to have their slogans printed on posters and plastered around town.

Photo: Aimee Nicole Friberg

Top-scorer of the night (at 872 points) Ms. Sadie Lune, with the handsome & charismatic Mr. Tony Labat himself. (An excerpt from her winning slogan: “I want you. I want you to be nice to sex workers. I want you, I really do. Vote Yes on Prop K!”)

At 861 points: Miss Nicole Mills-Novoa, also known as “Bird,” who warbled her way through a charming act with hand-puppets:

Photo: Aimee Nicole Friberg

Tara Jepsen & Beth Lisick, in third place, with 860 points, as Don & Phil: (”We just want you to have a little class.”):

Photo: Aimee Nicole Friberg

Poet Hazel White, with 805 points: (”I Want You/ to End Racism/ thought by thought/word by word.”):

Photo: Aimee Nicole Friberg

And Kali Eichen, with 782 points, who said, “I WANT YOU to smile at a stranger. Right now. Go on. Turn around. Find someone you don’t know, look them in the eye and smile.” [We did. Everyone in the audience did make smile at strangers nearby.]:

The voting was done scantron-style, and over 200 ballots were added up live onstage at the end of the evening (that’s the Education Department’s own Megan Brian, in patriotic red/white/blue, making good with the scantron machine).

And with inter-act cabaret by sparkling chanteuse of the fabulous shoes, Ms Veronica Klaus:

Photo: Aimee Nicole Friberg

A huge thank you to all the contestants who turned out to perform, to the audience for voting, and to emcee Jason Mateo. The Flickr set is here.

The project’s not over: look out around town for the posters which should be going up soon. Likewise, we’ll be screening Tony’s video of the auditions on election day, November 4th at 6:30 in the Wattis theater, and again on December 2nd at noon; both of these screenings will be free and open to the public.

Posted by Suzanne under Live Art, News | Tags: boom-boom boys, I WANT YOU, Live Art, Marching Orders, Tony Labat, Uncle Sam, Veronica Klaus

I have heard tales in the corridors here of total madness/spectacle about to unfold on the Wattis stage. Tonight at 6:30 THIRTY-THREE CONTESTANTS chosen from last week’s solo auditions for Tony Labat’s I WANT YOU project will perform for your vote. The performances are set to be staged in three rounds, hosted by poet/activist emcee Jason Mateo, and with inter-act entertainments by local chanteuse Veronica Klaus. The audience will choose five winners via old-fashioned school-style scantron ballots that will be tallied up live onstage at the close of the eve; as each winner is announced, he or she will be whisked away to be immediately photographed for their poster+slogan, with the audience watching the  backstage proceedings over closed-circuit live feed.

The Finalists: Johnny Bicycle, Jeffrey Brown, Kym Coffey, Nathan Conrad, Donald Daedalus, Veri Severe, Peter Dobey, Kali Eichen, Misty Epperson, Erica Gangsei, Rebecca Goldfarb, Nalani Hernandez-Melo, Dale Hoyt, Tara Jepsen & Beth Lisick, Lauren Kronemyer, Peter Max Lawrence, Suzanne L’Heureux, Sadie Lune, Nicole Mills-Novoa, Lady Monster, Sahar Mozaffar, Henry Neill, Johnny Rogers & Shalo P, Kendra Russo, Brandon Santiago, Shreya Sethi, Stephen Shearer, Andrea Slattery & Elizabeth Deters, Angela Thornton, Alexis Luna, Ian Treasure, Zurab Tsintsabadze, Hazel White

I WANT YOU: TO SHOW UP AND VOTE!

Posted by Suzanne under Live Art, News | Tags: I WANT YOU, Live Art, Tony Labat, Uncle Sam

At least fifty auditionees/sloganeers turned up for round one of Tony Labat’s I WANT YOU project this Thursday last, to deliver their I Want You to…imperatives to Tony and his team of celebrity(esque) judges. The bound, wailing creature above was one of the more curious and dramatic of the auditions but, interestingly, not the only performer to eschew actually speaking a demand.

Outside the theater, the Atrium looked a bit like any downtown casting call:

The auditions themselves were a bit unlike anything the Wattis stage is likely to have seen before:

And there was at least one inside job:

Overall it was a deeply SF/Bay-style set of demands & performances: There was a lot of half-nudity, a fair amount of enviro-positive, sex-positive demand (I want you to ride your bike, I want you to be nice to sex workers), a bit of silliness (I want you to eat your vegetables; I want youtube), and—at least in the round of 20 or so auditions I got to see—a surprisingly small amount of sloganeering directly addressing the upcoming presidential election.

One of the more amusing moments of the night, for me, came backstage, where I was standing in the stairwell text-messaging myself notes on the auditions. A woman in a black sparkling dress, next up to perform, was being outfitted with a wireless mic but explaining to the tech that she was going to take her dress off when she got on stage. A curious conversation ensued, regarding the limited options as to where this bit of technology might then most logically be affixed. She delivered her imperative (I want you to love your fat, beautiful body) while performing an old-school trick with tassles.  One judge’s response? “Now there’s a poster!”

Of course, this was only the first round, and the public performance/vote-off is still ahead. The judges have narrowed the field to THIRTY FINALISTS who will compete THIS THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 11th, onstage, American-Idol-style, in front of a live audience (THIS MEANS YOU). The audience will choose the five winners, who’ll have their slogans made into posters Tony will plaster around town between now and the November election.

All photos: Aimee Friberg. The Flickr set is here.

Posted by Suzanne under Live Art | Tags: I WANT YOU, Live Art, Marching Orders, puppet theater, tassles, Tony Labat, Uncle Sam