The LAB - Early History

Early History

The LAB was founded as Co-LAB in 1984 by a group of art students from the Center for Interdisciplinary and Experimental Arts (CEIA, now InterArts) at San Francisco State University. Founding members included, Laura Brun, Nomi Seidman, John DiStefano, and Tammy Logan, allof whom initially inhabited the space as an artist collective. Co-LAB shortly became a project of The.art.re.grup, Inc., an existing non-profit indedependamt arts theatre arts group seeking a performance space which was founded by Alan Millar in 1983. The co-founding artist members of the The LAB soon joined with Alan Millar's non-profit group to form the facility that was initially named Co-LAB (to facilitate the idea of artists collaborating) and eventually named it The LAB.

The organization was initially located at 1805 and 1807 Divisadero Street in a two-story commercial building in the San Francisco|Western Addition of San Francisco. The downstairs space had been a hippy-haunt and junk-shop for the two decades prior and the tenant's lease was due to expire. After Laura Brun negotiated and took over the lease with the intention of founding a collaborative interdisciplinary artist's organization, the other collaborating founders moved in at her invitation, sharing the work effort necessary to raise the monthly rent by presenting events in the 1805 space. The organization's inaugural presentation and fund-raiser featured a performance by seminal industrial music groups including Minimal Man, and following presentations included punk bands such as Husker Du, Rhythm and Noise, and dozens of others, raising sufficient proceeds to cover immediate expenses and keep the founder's nascent vision alive. The upstairs performance space at 1805, (formally a space occupied by an African American Masonic Society Church), featured a converted 1200 sq ft hall with hardwood floors, white walls, and movable seats and risers. By summer 1985, under the direction of Millar, the organization had improved the theatre space with modest sound and lighting improvements, built out a control booth, and painted the space as a black box theater. By late 1985 The LAB had become a recognized and sought-after venue by the city's experimental music and performance community. Alan Millar's dedication to experimental theatre/performance art, visual arts and music helped bring the initial vision of The LAB to fruition, and he led The LAB to great success in the following years.

In 1985, Alan Millar, Dana Fair and Ramon Vanden Brulle carved a modest gallery space out of the former downstairs junk shop. A solo show by San Francisco painter Dana Fair was the first visual arts exhibition in the new space. Ramon Vanden Brulle curated the follow-up exhibition, a group show that included work by several San Francisco artists, including Mark Durant.

In 1986 Alan Millar became the organization's first Managing Director, by then devoting all the energies of the.art.re.grup, Inc. to the management, funding and operations of The LAB. In 1987 the organization was stable enough to actually pay a salary for the position and Mr. Millar became the organization's first full-time employee and first Executive Director.

From 1986-90 the organization flourished. During this time, the exhibitions program, in an effort to have a greater impact on an emerging artist's career, moved away from large group shows organized by a single curator to an artist's committee selecting emerging local artists for solo and two-person exhibitions. including Rex Ray, Didi Dunphy, Paco Prieto/Jeff Sands, Victor Mario Zaballa, Dawn Fryling, and many other artists, had important solo exhibitions that helped launch their careers. After attending the opening of Dawn Fryling's exhibition at The LAB, new SF MOMA curator John Lane invited Ms. Fryling as the first solo artist in SF MOMA's new artists series. Glen Helfand, Patti Davidson and Scott MacLeod were early members of the visual arts selection committee.

In 1989, Laura Brun returned to the LAB after completing her degree in interdisciplinary arts during a college hiatus to become The LAB's interim Managing Director while Executive Director Alan Millar was in Russia facilitating the LAB's Russian/American artist exchange project. After that project was completed with great success, Alan Millar left the LAB in co-founder Brun's hands, when she became Executive Director of The LAB. During the years between 1990 and 2004 as Executive Director and then Artistic Director, Brun facilitated the presentation of the works of visual, performance, literary and interdisclipary artists such as Barry McGee, Rigo 94, Orlan, Victor Mario Zaballa, Rex Ray, Nao Bustamante,Gillermo Gomez-Pena, Bruce Connor, Dennis Cooper, Dodie Bellamy, Minnette Lehmann, Charles Gute, Karen Finley, Peter Edlund, Dorothy Allison, Kevin Killian, Sapphire, Lise Swenson, Chris Komater, Los Cybrids, Rebecca Bollinger, Carla Harryman, Carl Stone, Kathleen Rogers, Ansuman Biswas, The Billboard Liberation Front, Linda Montano, Survival Research Laboratories, and many others, presenting an average of 200 artists a year in exhibitions, live performances, literary readings, poet's theater events, installation art, film, video, sound art and experimental music events, lectures, artist forums, and other interdisplinary events featuring more than 200 artists a year until her departure in 2004.