War Toys
an installation by Larnie Fox May 6-May 24
Opening Reception: Friday, May 9, 5-9 PM
Gallery hours: Wednesdays-Saturdays, 1-6pm   An installation of new kinetic sculpture by San Francisco artist Larnie Fox exploring his lifelong fascination with images of the machinery of war. War Toys reflects the artist’s boyhood interest in things that fly, shoot, burn, explode or make noise, channeled now through his art away from war and toward a poetic reverie about science, space exploration and robotics. War Toys also evokes a common sense of ambiguity felt by those who are simultaneously horrified by war and at the same time amazed by the technology we have amassed to perpetrate mass destruction.
www.infoflow.com/larnie
 In the Foyer Gallery:
Charles Gatewood
Forbidden Photographs
May 6-May 24
Opening Reception: Friday, May 9, 5-9 PM An exhibition of black and white and color photographs by acclaimed San Francisco artist Charles Gatewood, who has documented America's alternative culture for the past forty years. This exhibition is in conjunction with the opening of Forbidden Photographs, a feature film by Bill Macdonald about Gatewood's life and work, which opens at the Roxie Theatre the same evening and runs through May 15th.
Charles Gatewood will be present at the opening reception to sign copies of his many books, including his latest, MESSY GIRLS, just published by Goliath Books.
Leslie Scalapino and Enough
Reading and Publication Party
Wednesday, May 21, 8 PM
$5-10 sliding scale admission
May 21st will be a dual evening. Leslie Scalapino will read from her new book from Wesleyan University Press, which is her autobiography with a poem, Zither & Autobiography. This will be followed by readings, with San Francisco contributors, from O Books’ Enough, edited by Rick London and Leslie Scalapino. Enough is an anthology of poetry and writings against war that includes fifty-eight poets whose contributions are interactive with the current time. In Enough, U.S., British, Palestinian, Iraqi, and Israeli poets speak back and forth to each other through the medium of their art.
Scot Jenerik and Larnie Fox
TARGODIE
sound performance Friday, May 23, 8pm
$5-10 sliding scale admission TARGODIE is an experimental sound project begun in 1995 by San Francisco sound artist Scot Jenerik and sculptor Larnie Fox. Their soundscapes range from atmospheric bliss to penetrating noise. Jenerik brings forceful percussion, invented instruments and technical expertise to the mix, while Fox provides melodic elements and sculptural sound sources. To date TARGODIE has one release on Mobilization Recordings, Against the Sky.
Dicewalk
participatory event with Larnie Fox Saturday, May 24, 1pm
Free Join Larnie Fox at The LAB on the closing day of his exhibition for a special chance event. Fox will lead participants on a dicewalk, a way of moving through an urban or town environment in a random manner. The randomness allows for movement through areas that one would ordinarily not venture into, often facilitating surprising discoveries. For more information visit
www.infoflow.com/larnie/dicewalk
Mary Armentrout
THE NEW WORLD Fridays & Saturdays, June 6, 7, 13, 14
9pm, doors open at 8:30pm
$5-10 sliding scale admission THE NEW WORLD is Mary Armentrout's newest multi-disciplinary dance theater piece. In a dream collage installation that collides dance, theater, video projections and an ambient sound score, six performers deconstruct everyday activities in ways that probe the usefulness of history, the limits of politics, the fluidity of gender roles, and the difficulty of love. Known for her genre-bending, gender role-breaking dance theater works, Armentrout presents the fruits of her recent forays into the collective unconscious, the battle of the sexes, and the troubled American political psyche of the moment. Known for her experiments on the edge of hybrid dance-theater fusion, Armentrout is a choreographer whose work lives at the intersection of dance, theater, and object art. Special guest artists Merlin Coleman and Maxine Moerman contribute genre-mixing work of their own. For more information visit: www.merlinman.com
Down River & Hazy Lopers
CD Release Party and Solstice Eve Concert Friday, June 20 9pm, doors open at 8:30pm
$3-10 sliding scale admission Celebrate the night before the longest day with music by Down River and Hazy Loper. Brand new CDs by both bands from San Francisco's Out of Round Records on sale for $12.
Guillermo Gomez-Pena and La Pocha Nostra
IMMACULATE DECEPTIONS Friday and Saturday, June 27 & 28
9pm, doors open at 8:30pm
$10-20 sliding scale admission Two evenings of new performance, video and literary works in progress by La Pocha Nostra and international guest artists, followed by open discussion with the audience. Participating artists include: Guillermo Gomez-Pena and Juan Ybarra (San Francisco-Mexico City); Michelle Ceballos (Bogota-Phoenix); Monica Lleo (Canary Islands-Buenos Aires) and a few surprise guests.
ART PROPAGANDA WAR
Group Exhibition July 2-July 12
Opening Reception: Friday, July 4, 5-8 PM
Gallery hours: Wednesdays-Saturdays, 1-6 PM In an invitational group exhibition coordinated by Michael Rauner and Allegra Fortunati, Bay Area artists use the public forum for creative acts of dissent. This exhibition will recognize visual and performed public artworks about propaganda and war by local activists and artists.
Kristin Lemberg
WANDERLUST in FableCity
July 25 and 26, 9pm
$10-$20 sliding scale admission
www.rkcorral.com
Choreographer, Dancer and Performance Artist Kristin Lemberg and The RK Corral are proud to present WANDERLUST in FableCity, an evening length solo featuring a dynamic theatrical performance by Kristin Lemberg, directed by Rajendra Serber, with music by Cheryl E. Leonard, costumes by Ryan Heffington of Rock and Sissy, and video cityscapes by Rajendra Serber and Bulk Foodveyor. Set in an industrial metropolis amid political upheaval and economic disparity, WANDERLUST in FableCity is a non-linear assemblage focusing on two women: the isolated, socially elevated Hera Anne and the antic and hyper-indecisive Annie Herowane. The differences between these two characters are external: their caste, their situations, and their responsibilities. The only thing they have in common is an acute and insatiable case of wanderlust.
more...
The LAB Presents
The West Coast Premiere of Carla Harryman’s
Performing Objects Stationed in the Sub World
A season opening event inaugurating The LAB’s 20th Anniversary
Wednesday, September 10, 8 PM, Gala Preview and Anniversary Celebration
$20 Admission
Friday/Saturday, September 12-13 & Thursdays-Saturdays, September 18-27, 8 PM
$10-$20 Sliding Scale Admission
Written by Carla Harryman
Directed by Jim Cave & Carla Harryman
Set Design and Costumes by Amy Trachtenberg
Music by Erling Wold
Featuring Principal Actors:
Ken Berry
Annie Kunjappy
Walonda J. Lewis
Roham Shaikhani
&
The Poets Chorus:
Taylor Brady
Brent Cunningham
Patrick Durgin
M. Mara-Ann
Jocelyn Saidenberg
The LAB’s 20th Anniversary Season kicks off with the West Coast premiere of internationally recognized poet, playwright and prose writer Carla Harryman’s new play, Performing Objects Stationed in the Sub World. Written by Carla Harryman, and collaboratively developed with visual artist Amy Trachtenberg and director Jim Cave, with music by composer Erling Wold, Performing Objects explores social relationships and cultural assumptions about social space, gender, ethnicity and childhood. Drawing from Harryman’s experiences growing up in California and her subsequent move to the Mid-West, the play combines poetry, theatrical dialogue and agit prop to describe an inter-cultural social conscience. Performing Objects, at times hilarious, spectacular, psychoanalytic, anti-isolationist, astute, improper, and benevolent, receives its first full-scale production at The LAB. Harryman and her collaborators are artists-in-residence at The LAB during July and August, rehearsing and building a site-specific set. more...
In the Foyer Gallery:
Amy Trachtenberg
Suspended Passage
September 10-27
Opening Reception: Wednesday, September 10, 6-8 PM
Gallery hours: Fridays-Saturdays, 6-8 PM
The entry of The LAB is altered and activated as a passageway towards the stage of the play Performing Objects Stationed In the Sub World with sets and costumes designed by Amy Trachtenberg.
As a painter crossing over to the stage, Trachtenberg’s set and costume elements for the theater develop without regard to expected categories. They are conceived as a morphological response to the text, rehearsal process and geometry of the architecture.
Trachtenberg’s paintings were recently shown at The Luggage Store Gallery. Permanent public art projects are installed at Pixar and Children’s Hospital Oakland. She has designed the visual elements for over twenty new opera, dance and theater performances.
Barrett Watten
The Constructivist Moment
Reading, Discussion, Publication Event
Saturday, September 20, 4 PM
$5-$8 sliding scale admission
Language poet and critic Barrett Watten left San Francisco for Detroit in 1994. A violent but generative shift in literary perspective resulted, which led in turn to a remarkable collection of essays, The Constructivist Moment: From Material Text to Cultural Poetics, recently published by Wesleyan University Press. Watten returns to The LAB, where the first of the essays in the book was unveiled, to discuss the manifold themes of his work, beginning with his account of the crucial shift from an aesthetic of the "material text," one of the distinguishing features of language-centered writing, to what he sees as the larger horizon of a "cultural poetics."
The Constructivist Moment comprises a series of highly original approaches to reading artistic form within cultural context by interrogating the principles of its formal construction. Topics range from 1920s Soviet constructivism to 1960s conceptual art in New York, the formation of the Language School in the 1970s, and the surfacing of Detroit techno in the 1990s. Watten argues that the avant-garde, in its foregrounding of “negativity,” proposes a "horizon of possibility, an imagination of participation, a totalizing vision" for society that can yield new models for action.
Barrett Watten is Associate Professor of English at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan and the author of Total Syntax (1985), essays on avant-garde poetics. He was the editor of This (1971-82) and co-editor of Poetics Journal (1982-98). Recent collections of his literary work include Frame (1971-1990) (1997), Bad History (1998), and, forthcoming, Progress/Under Erasure.
 R&D
20 Years/20 Artists
October 10 - November 8, 2003
Reception: Friday, October 10, 6-9 PM
Gallery hours: Wednesdays-Saturdays, 1-6 PM |
Leaning Toward the Front
Panel Discussion
Thursday, October 23, 8 PM
$5-$7 Sliding Scale
A panel discussion about the significant role of non-profit arts organizations supporting the development of new and experimental work by emerging and mid-career artists. Why do we need non-profits and what do they do? What do alternative arts organizations add to the mix of local and international art culture? These and other questions will be addressed by artists, curators, and critics Jaime Cortez, Lauren Davies, Anthony Discenza, Claire Light, Jack Hanley, Renny Pritikin, and Lise Swenson. The panel will be moderated by art writer and curator Allegra Fortunati.
Post-Postcard 7
Thursday-Saturday
November 20-23
Just In Time for Holiday Shopping!
A Sale Featuring Small-format Multiples
Opening Reception: Thursday, November 20
6-9 PM
Gallery hours continue Friday-Sunday, November 21-23 1-6 PM
Free Admission
The LAB takes up the mantle from Four Walls and Southern Exposure by hosting Post-Postcard 7, an annual extravaganza of small-format works priced at $50 or less. A portion of the sales will benefit The LAB. Artists interested in participating may email postcardshow@thelab.org or check out the postcard form for entry information.
Re/Search at The LAB: The PRANKS! FESTIVAL
Two Nights of Celebration and Angst to Benefit
RE/Search Publications and The LAB
Musical Meyhem:
A Night of Industrial Music
Featuring the reunited band FACTRIX
Friday, December 5
8:30-11 PM
$7-$15 Sliding Scale
RE/Search presents a night of industrial music featuring pioneers FACTRIX in a rare public reunion concert with very special guests Monique Marquisa De Magdalena, Sixxteens, and others TBA. San Francisco's RE/Search Publications played a major role in the dissemination of “Industrial” music before the genre was known, and FACTRIX was featured in RE/Search #1. New York art critic Carlo McCormick praised FACTRIX as “one of the great bands of their era, prescient and influential...” and the Village Voice wrote, “Peerless.” A legend in Europe and Japan for the past 23 years, tonight FACTRIX promises an all-out sensory sturm-und-drang, drenched in melancholy and epiphany. Most of their recordings are out of print, but a small quantity of their gorgeous new, highly-limited 2-CD release box on the German STORM label, “ARTIFACT,” will be available for autographing by the band. Lovers of Goth and Industrial music will not be disappointed; anyone dressed in all-black will receive a special discount and a door prize! The Pranksters Ball
Saturday, December 6
6-10 PM
$5-$20 Sliding Scale
A Celebration, Reunion, Christmas Gift Faire and Reception for the 10 local Bay Area artists who appeared in RE/Search's highly influential book, PRANKS! Participating artists include: Mark Pauline/SURVIVAL RESEARCH LABORATORIES (SRL), Monte Cazazza, Bruce Conner, Paul Mavrides, Mark McCloud, Mal Sharpe, Fluxus Anti-Artist Robert Delford Brown, John Trubee, tattoo guru Don Ed Hardy and a rumored appearance by Jello Biafra. These and other RE/Search luminaries will be present to autograph copies of PRANKS! and offer their rare CDs, art, posters, videos, etc. The RE/Search backlist will be available for sale as well. A 48-hour exhibition will feature large blow-ups by Survival Research Laboratories and other art works by participants. Contemporary Billboard Liberation Front pranksters are rumored to be in attendance as well. The event will begin with a Pranks! panel discussion, and an ouija board summoning the Ghosts of Pranksters Past, conducted by the mysterious Madame Clairvoyant. Everyone who has ever appeared in a RE/Search book is also invited to attend, so with all these people in one room...?! Admission includes a $5 discount coupon good toward the purchase of a PRANKS! book.
Colonized Pleasure:
a Seratonin-based Response to the Commodity-Parasite and the Evolution of Consumer Society
Sunday, December 7
8 PM
Free Admission
New Video Art
by Sarah Lockhart
Colonized Pleasure is a two-channel projected video work that makes the bold assertion that our consumerist desires are the result of an infection by a powerful parasite that lives, feeds, and grows on consumerist behavior. In fact, this parasite alters our brain chemistry so that Ikea furniture, a Prada handbag or an ice cold Pepsi, for example, will cause our brains to release the pleasure-chemical, seratonin, that nourishes the parasite. The parasite does not kill its consumer host, it merely makes it want to go shopping.
Lockhart’s media works are primarily video essays that foray into mundane aspects of cultural anthropology. Imagery appropriated from television commercials, Hollywood cinema, and advertisements in other media illustrate the piece's pseudo-authoritative narrative, borrowing language and structure from scientific presentations to trace the evolution and life cycle of the commodity-parasite. The deadpan seriousness with which this ostensibly crackpot theory is espoused abstracts its highly material subject for better analysis. Sarah Lockhart’s “Colonized Pleasure” is the culminating project for her M.A. in Broadcasting and Electronic Communication Arts (BECA) at SFSU.
Bread > Circus II:
Multimedia Art Exhibition
December 10-13
Opening Reception: Wednesday, December 10
6-9 PM
Free Admission
Gallery Hours: Wednesday-Saturday
1-6 PM
“Long since, because we can sell our votes to no one, We have thrown off our cares; those who once bestowed Rule, the fasces, legions, everything, now refrain, and hunger for only two things: bread and circuses”
– Juvenal, Satire X c. 85 C.E.
Bread > Circus II features work in diverse media by 14 San Francisco Art Institute students led by art critic and teacher Mark Von Proyen. Taking Juvenal's assessment of the Roman mob to heart, the artists included in Bread > Circus II ironically reflect on the role of spectacle in contemporary visual culture. The featured artists are: Zach Amendolia, Shane Berkowitz, Suzie Buchholz, Caleb Gentry, Naoko Goto, Josh Hartsough, Eui-Hyang Lee, Margaret McGuire, Erman Mercan, Mabel Negrete, Eric Taylor, Brian Traylor, Robert Vergara and Matt Woods. |
The Clarinet Monster Series
