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Olga Albizu

Juan Boza

Barbara Carrasco

Ana Mendieta

Great Lives from History: Latinos

Tony Labat

by Anita Price Davis

Cuban-born artist and educator

A Cuban émigré, Labat is an art teacher and visual artist, whose nontraditional works often carry a cultural message.

Areas of achievement: Art; education

Early Life

Born in Havana, Cuba, in 1951, Tony Labat (lah-BAHT) immigrated to the United States in 1966. After meeting the entrance requirements for the San Francisco Art Institute, Labat began pursuing an education there, earning his B.F.A. degree in 1978. That same year, before he received his degree, Labat submitted a proposal to Langton Arts (now New Langton Arts) in order to participate in an exhibition at this gallery. Although Labat was familiar with the gallery’s standard review and selection process for prospective exhibitors, he did not follow the usual procedure. Instead of an art portfolio and résumé, Labat submitted a dozen plastic roses to the panel of judges; his attached note read only “Trust me.” Although Labat’s actions bypassed convention and might have been subject to misunderstanding, the panel received his approach well and allowed him to exhibit. The plastic roses later were placed on a display stand at the entrance to the show.

Tony Labat.

324_Labat_Tony.jpg

(© Katy Raddatz/San Francisco Chronicle/Corbis)

Labat received public attention in 1978 for another action: his “gonged” appearance on The Gong Show, a popular television program. Performers on this show would have to leave the stage if the judges banged a gong during their routines. Labat would later create an innovative video based on his performance.

Labat’s continued his training at the San Francisco Art Institute, earning his M.F.A. degree in 1980.

Life’s Work

After completing his education, Labat converted his art studio into a combination gym and training facility in order to make a statement about the public’s preference for primarily purist art, including traditional photographic documentation. After training for months in this newly established gymnasium, Labat challenged rival realist artist and former jockey Tom Chapman to a regulation boxing match at Kezar Pavilion. To publicize the fight, Labat commissioned not the typical photograph but a chaotic painting by artist Katherine Sherwood. This publicity also served as a critical appraisal of the sole use of photographic documentation. To further heighten the buildup for the event, Labat scheduled San Francisco topless entertainer Carol Doda to be the card girl marking the round count.

In 1985, Labat joined the faculty of the San Francisco Art Institute, and he eventually became faculty director of the school’s M.F.A. program.

In 2005, New Langton Arts presented a survey of Labat’s work to celebrate its thirtieth anniversary. The exhibit highlighted Labat’s performances, films, paintings, and drawings, demonstrating his proficiency and talent in many media. Labat’s 1978 appearance on The Gong Show and his 1981 video Fight, P.O.V. (Point of View) were shown at this exhibit. Labat inserted commercials and televised news reports dating from 1978 and 1981, respectively, into these videos, creating a deliberately irregular record of events. In his 2006 article in Artforum International, Bruce Hainley argued that these two videos were precursors of reality television.

In 2006, Labat completed Day Labor: Mapping the Outside, a popular but controversial video installation. For three months he had secretly filmed Hispanic workers waiting for employment. This frequently exhibited video demonstrates the passivity of the Hispanics and California’s dependence upon the labor of illegal immigrants.

Regardless of the medium in which he works, Labat helps his viewers to identify with the experiences he presents to them. Never hesitant to incorporate culture, fashion, and politics into his artworks, he depicts people as heroes and as villains and objects as both trash and treasure.

Significance

Tony Labat’s innovative artwork draws upon many styles and media, including film, painting, and drawing. Labat has sought both to raise public consciousness of the differences and similarities among various cultures—particularly between the Cuban and American cultures—and to publicize marginalization and displacement of various peoples.

Between 1980 and 2007, Labat contributed work to 383 national and international exhibits, developed more than 30 videos, and placed his work in more than 20 collections, including the Museum of Modern Art. He has received several awards and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Institute of Contemporary Art, and other organizations.

Further Reading

1 

Hainley, Bruce. “Tony Labat: New Langton Arts.” Artforum International 44, no. 5 (January, 2006): 227. Hainley notes that Labat uses media—particularly video and television—to construct social, aesthetic, and political narratives. This brief biographical sketch also calls attention to Labat’s focus on Cuban-American relations.

2 

Kuenstler, Emily. “Objects Collected, Images Understood.” Afterimage, January-February, 2006, 42. This biographical sketch, published after Labat’s 2005 exhibit at New Langton Arts, recounts his work in various media, his influences, and his successes. The article also comments on the exhibit itself.

3 

Labat, Tony, and Carlo McCormick. The Strange Case of T. L. San Francisco: Artspace Books, 1995. Artist Labat and critic McCormick wrote this nontraditional portrait of Cuban immigrant T. L., who may be Labat himself. Each time T. L. speaks, McCormick responds and analyzes T. L.’s words and photos.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Davis, Anita Price. "Tony Labat." Great Lives from History: Latinos, edited by Carmen Tafolla & Martha P. Cotera, Salem Press, 2012. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=GLL_10013240033901001.
APA 7th
Davis, A. P. (2012). Tony Labat. In C. Tafolla & M. P. Cotera (Eds.), Great Lives from History: Latinos. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Davis, Anita Price. "Tony Labat." Edited by Carmen Tafolla & Martha P. Cotera. Great Lives from History: Latinos. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2012. Accessed October 22, 2025. online.salempress.com.