Sarah Lucas (born 1962) is an English artist. She is part of the generation of

Young British Artists The Young British Artists, or YBAs—also referred to as Brit artists and Britart—is a loose group of visual artists who first began to exhibit together in London in 1988. Many of the YBA artists graduated from the BA Fine Art course at Golds ...

who emerged during the 1990s. Her works frequently employ visual puns and bawdy humour by incorporating photography, collage and found objects.

Life and work

Education

Lucas was born in London, England in 1962. She left school at 16, returning to study art at The Working Men's College (1982–83),

London College of Printing The London College of Communication is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London. It specialises in media-related subjects including advertising, animation, film, graphic design, photography and sound arts. It has approximately ...

(1983–84), and

Goldsmiths College Goldsmiths, University of London, officially the Goldsmiths' College, is a constituent research university of the University of London in England. It was originally founded in 1891 as The Goldsmiths' Technical and Recreative Institute by the Wor ...

(1984–87), graduating with a degree in Fine Art in 1987.Sarah Lucas
Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Work

Lucas was included in the 1988 group exhibition '' Freeze'' along with contemporary artists including

Angus Fairhurst Angus Fairhurst (4 October 1966 – 29 March 2008) was an English artist working in installation, photography and video. He was one of the Young British Artists (YBAs). Life and work Angus Fairhurst was born in Pembury, Kent. Having atten ...

Damien Hirst Damien Steven Hirst (; né Brennan; born 7 June 1965) is an English artist, entrepreneur, and art collector. He is one of the Young British Artists (YBAs) who dominated the art scene in the UK during the 1990s. He is reportedly the United King ...

, and

Gary Hume Gary Stewart Hume (born 9 May 1962) is an English artist. Hume's work is strongly identified with the YBA who came to prominence in the early 1990s. Hume lives and works in London and Accord, New York.

. In 1990, Lucas co-organized the East Country Yard Show with

Henry Bond Henry Bond, FHEA (born 13 June 1966) is an English writer, photographer, and visual artist. In his ''Lacan at the Scene'' (2009), Bond made contributions to theoretical psychoanalysis and forensics. In 1990, with Sarah Lucas, Bond organised ...

, in which she also exhibited. Her first two solo exhibitions in 1992 were titled ''The Whole Joke'' and ''Penis Nailed to a Board''. It was in the early 1990s when Lucas began using furniture as a substitute for the human body, usually with crude genital punning. Created for a show organised by fellow artist

Georg Herold Georg Herold (born 1947) is a German artist. He works in sculpture, installation, painting, photography, and video art. He lives and works in Cologne, Germany. Early life and education Herold finalized a traineeship as an artist blacksmith ...

Portikus Portikus is an exhibition hall for contemporary art in Frankfurt am Main, that was founded in 1987 by Kasper König. The museum is part of the Museumsufer. Portikus presents the work of internationally renowned artists, and exhibits younger, eme ...

, ''Au Naturel'' (1994) is an assemblage of objects—a mattress, a bucket, a pair of melons, oranges and a cucumber—that suggest male and female body parts. For six months in 1993, Lucas and fellow artist

Tracey Emin Tracey Karima Emin, CBE, RA (; born 3 July 1963) is a British artist known for her autobiographical and confessional artwork. Emin produces work in a variety of media including drawing, painting, sculpture, film, photography, neon text and ...

rented a retail space in east London, ''The Shop'', where they made artworks, ranging from printed mugs to T-shirts with slogans, and put them on sale. In works such as ''Bitch'' (table, T-shirt, melons, and vacuum-packed smoked fish, 1995), she merges tabloid culture with the economy of the ready-made. In earlier work, she had displayed enlarged pages from the '' Sunday Sport'' newspaper. Through her career, Lucas has continued to appropriate everyday materials (including, for example, freshly made fried eggs) to make works that use humour, visual puns and sexual metaphors of sex, death, Englishness and gender. Sarah Lucas is also known for her

self-portraits A self-portrait is a representation of an artist that is drawn, painted, photographed, or sculpted by that artist. Although self-portraits have been made since the earliest times, it is not until the Early Renaissance in the mid-15th century tha ...

, such as ''Human Toilet Revisited'', 1998, a colour photograph in which she sits on a toilet smoking a cigarette. In her solo exhibition ''The Fag Show'' at Sadie Coles in 2000, she used cigarettes as a material, as in ''Self-portrait with Cigarettes'' (2000). And in 2001, Sarah Lucas used Neon tubes for her artwork ‘New Religion’ in which a transparent coffin has been lit up violet. It was later acquired by

George Michael George Michael (born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou; 25 June 1963 – 25 December 2016) was an English singer and songwriter. He is considered one of the most significant cultural icons of the MTV Generation, MTV generation and is one of the List ...

in 2004. Lucas' 2006 sculpture of a life-size bronze horse and cart, ''Perceval'', is situated in Cullum Street, London. Writing in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide ...

'', in 2011,

Aida Edemariam Aida Edemariam is an Ethiopian- Canadian journalist based in the UK, who has worked in New York, Toronto and London. She was formerly deputy review and books editor of the Canadian ''National Post'', and is now a senior feature writer and editor ...

said that "Lucas was the wildest of the

, partying hard and making art that was provocative and at times genuinely shocking."Aida Edemariam
"The Saturday interview: Sarah Lucas"
''The Guardian'', 28 May 2011. In 1996, she was the subject of a BBC documentary, ''Two Melons and a Stinking Fish''.

Exhibitions

Lucas had her first solo exhibition in 1992 at

City Racing City Racing was a squatted artist-run space in Oval Mansions, Kennington, South London which was active between 1988 and 1998. It was a cooperative by five artists Matt Hale, Paul Noble, John Burgess, Keith Coventry and Peter Owen. They s ...

, an artist run gallery in south London, and her first solo show in

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

at the

Barbara Gladstone Barbara Gladstone ( Levitt) is an American art dealer and film producer. She is owner of Gladstone Gallery, a contemporary art gallery with locations in New York and Brussels. Gladstone Gallery History In 1980, Gladstone gave up teaching art hist ...

Gallery in 1995. One-person museum exhibitions at Museum Boymans-van Beuningen in

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"N ...

, at Portikus in

Frankfurt Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , " Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its ...

, at

Museum Ludwig Museum Ludwig, located in Cologne, Germany, houses a collection of modern art. It includes works from Pop Art, Abstract and Surrealism, and has one of the largest Picasso collections in Europe. It holds many works by Andy Warhol and Roy Lich ...

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...

and at Kunsthalle Zurich, Kunstverein am

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; nds, label=Hamburg German, Low Saxon, Hamborg ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (german: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg; nds, label=Low Saxon, Friee un Hansestadt Hamborg),. is the List of cities in Germany by popul ...

and

Tate Liverpool Tate Liverpool is an art gallery and museum in Liverpool, Merseyside, England, and part of Tate, along with Tate St Ives, Cornwall, Tate Britain, London, and Tate Modern, London. The museum was an initiative of the Merseyside Development Corpo ...

have accompanied exhibitions in less conventional spaces—an empty office building for ''The Law'' in 1997, a disused postal depot in

Berlin Berlin is Capital of Germany, the capital and largest city of Germany, both by area and List of cities in Germany by population, by population. Its more than 3.85 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European U ...

for the exhibition ''Beautiness'' in 1999, and an installation at the

Freud Museum The Freud Museum in London is a museum dedicated to Sigmund Freud, located in the house where Freud lived with his family during the last year of his life. In 1938, after escaping Nazi annexation of Austria he came to London via Paris and st ...

called ''Beyond the Pleasure Principle'' in 2000. Lucas's work has been included in major surveys of new British art in the last decade including '' Brilliant!—New Art From London'' at the

Walker Art Center The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in the United States and, to ...

Minneapolis Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with list of lakes in Minneapolis, thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. ...

, in 1995, ''

Sensation Sensation (psychology) refers to the processing of the senses by the sensory system. Sensation or sensations may also refer to: In arts and entertainment In literature *Sensation (fiction), a fiction writing mode * Sensation novel, a Britis ...

'' (Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection at the

Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its purp ...

in 1997), and ''Intelligence—New British Art'', 2000, at

Tate Britain Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in E ...

. In 2003, Sarah Lucas participated in the 50th International Biennale of Art in Venice, ''Outlook: Contemporary Art in Athens'', and ''In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida'', a three-person exhibition for

with Angus Fairhurst and

in 2004. From October 2005 to January 2006,

presented the first survey exhibition of Lucas's work. In 2012 Lucas curated ''Free'', an exhibition at the

Southbank Centre Southbank Centre is a complex of artistic venues in London, England, on the South Bank of the River Thames (between Hungerford Bridge and Waterloo Bridge). It comprises three main performance venues (the Royal Festival Hall including the Nati ...

by the Koestler Trust. The annual exhibition displays art works by prisoners, detainees and ex-offenders. The theme was '50', to acknowledge the 50th anniversary of Koestler Trust and Lucas was 50 years old at the time. In 2013 the

Whitechapel Gallery The Whitechapel Gallery is a public art gallery in Whitechapel on the north side of Whitechapel High Street, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The original building, designed by Charles Harrison Townsend, opened in 1901 as one of the f ...

in East

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

hosted a retrospective of Lucas' work. In 2015 Sarah Lucas represented Britain at the 56th

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

with ''SCREAM DADDIO.'' She was interviewed by close friend Don Brown during the installation of the exhibition. In September 2018,

The New Museum The New Museum of Contemporary Art, founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker, is a museum in New York City at 235 Bowery, on Manhattan's Lower East Side. History The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-named New Scho ...

presented the first American survey of Lucas’ work in the exhibition "Sarah Lucas: Au Naturel". Lucas has also created new sculptural works for the exhibition, including ''This Jaguar's Going to Heaven'' (2018), a severed 2003 Jaguar X-Type—the car’s back half burned and its front half collaged with cigarettes—and ''VOX POP DORIS'' (2018), a pair of eleven-foot-tall thigh-high platform boots cast in concrete. The exhibition traveled to the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles in June 2019. The National Gallery of Australia's 2021-22 ''Know My Name Exhibition Part Two'' features the work ''Installation of Project 1: Sarah Lucas,'' as well as her first self-portraits, ''Eating a Banana.''

Feminist interpretation

Lucas frequently employs a critical humor in her work in order to question conventions and highlighting the absurdity of the everyday. One of Lucas’ most famous works ''Two Fried Eggs and Kebab'', parodies the traditional still life and evokes similarities between itself and feminist

Judy Chicago Judy Chicago (born Judith Sylvia Cohen; July 20, 1939) is an American feminist artist, art educator, and writer known for her large collaborative art installation pieces about birth and creation images, which examine the role of women in history ...

’s infamous piece

The Dinner Party ''The Dinner Party'' is an installation artwork by feminist artist Judy Chicago. Widely regarded as the first epic feminist artwork, it functions as a symbolic history of women in civilization. There are 39 elaborate place settings on a triangul ...

''.'' Feminist reviews often describe Lucas as attempting to add female artists into the canon of art history through her analytical work that predominantly discusses the female body and voyeurism. Lucas frequently appropriates masculine constructions to confront and dissect their nature. Her pieces represent a fantastical world and playfully employs unrealistic ideals to unearth obscene paradoxes created by those very constructions. Specifically, she is concerned with the casual misogyny of everyday life and employs the conventions of middle class or ‘street’ language to enact her concepts. Her appropriation of masculine symbols such as the phallic banana or ‘fried eggs’ in conjunction with her fearless and dominating gaze, takes ‘female work’ out of the feminine sphere and disrupts the patriarchal power dynamic of the gaze. Works such as ''The old in Out'' (1988) is a reference to

Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...

’s ''

Fountain A fountain, from the Latin "fons" (genitive "fontis"), meaning source or spring, is a decorative reservoir used for discharging water. It is also a structure that jets water into the air for a decorative or dramatic effect. Fountains were or ...

'' (1917) and ''Two Fried Eggs and Kebab'' (1992) has been linked to

Édouard Manet Édouard Manet (, ; ; 23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, as well as a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism. Bor ...

’s '' Olympia'' (1863). While Lucas continues the artistic legacy of feminist artists such as Hannah Wilke,

Cindy Sherman Cynthia Morris Sherman (born January 19, 1954) is an American artist whose work consists primarily of photographic self-portraits, depicting herself in many different contexts and as various imagined characters. Her breakthrough work is often co ...

, and Rachel Whiteread, her visual language empties femininity of meaning and thus removes her from such a clear ‘feminist art’ title. Sexuality is not apparent in her works and a lack of association with morality leaves viewers at the free will of her humorous narratives. Lucas takes on the role as a source of reflecting sexism, but not overtly commenting on it. She has stated that, “I am not trying to solve the problem. I'm exploring the moral dilemma by incorporating it”. Her works are both literal and conceptual evidence of Lucas searching for meaning. Whether it is through recognizable forms or her own mythologized fantasies, her ideas constantly build and transform. She appears to never be satisfied with her outcome and scours every imaginable medium for an outlet that is fitting. To her, the artworks she make “...carry on talking and thinking with other people”. Lucas’s practice is then not compulsive ramblings or automatic depictions, but a conscious yearning for a personal sense of happiness.

Personal life

Sarah Lucas was born in 1962 to a milkman father and a part-time gardener and cleaner mother, who she says had "absolutely no ambition." She grew up in an estate in Holloway, north London, though she frequently accompanied her parents to other homes to "ogle the furniture." She became pregnant at 17 after leaving school at 16 and had an abortion, then deciding to hitchhike around Europe in search of a direction for her life. Lucas now lives with her partner Julian Simmons, in the former residence of

Benjamin Britten Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976, aged 63) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other ...

near

Aldeburgh Aldeburgh ( ) is a coastal town in the county of Suffolk, England. Located to the north of the River Alde. Its estimated population was 2,276 in 2019. It was home to the composer Benjamin Britten and remains the centre of the international Aldeb ...

; a home which is "tucked away down a long country lane, behind a Baptist church in

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include L ...

." In August 2014, Lucas was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to ''

'' opposing Scottish independence in the run-up to September's referendum on that issue.

Young British Artists

Young British Artists (YBAs) also known as the Brit artists or the Britart, are a group of British artists who in 1988 began to exhibit together. The group was organized by

and includes Angus Fairhurst, Michael Landy, Christine Borland, Tracey Emin, Cornelia Parker, and Gary Hume. The group became famous for their openness to materials and processes, shock tactics and entrepreneurial attitude. Their first exhibition ''Freeze'' included the work of Damien Hirst, Sarah Lucas, Angus Fairhusrt, and Michael Landy while they were all still students at Goldsmiths College of Art. The term "Young British Artists" was coined in May 1992 by Michael Corris in ''Artforum.'' The acronym YBA wasn't created until 1996 when it was published in ''Art Monthly'' magazine. The terms became the brand for the group and showcased the "can do" spirit their art entailed.

Gallery representation

Lucas is represented by Sadie Coles HQ, London,

, New York, and Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin (CFA).

References

External links

Sadie Coles HQ: Sarah LucasGladstone Gallery: Sarah LucasTate Liverpool Sarah Lucas survey show (2006)Sarah Lucas feature on BBC Collective (2005)Sarah Lucas on the Tate web siteArtist portrait / spike art quarterly

Brooklyn Rail In Conversation Sarah Lucas with William CorwinContemporary Fine Arts, Berlin: Sarah Lucas
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lucas, Sarah 1962 births Living people 20th-century English women artists 21st-century English women artists Alumni of Goldsmiths, University of London Artists from London English contemporary artists People from Holloway, London Young British Artists