Sarah Lucas

Born 1962

The Artist

• Lucas merges low-life misogynist tabloid culture with the economy of the readymade, with the intention of confronting sexual stereotyping

• In the early 1990s she began using furniture as a substitute for the human body, usually with crude genital punning

• Throughout her career, Lucas has continued to use everyday materials such as, for example, freshly made fried eggs, to create works that apply humour, visual puns and sexual metaphors of sex, death, ‘Englishness’ and gender

Young British Artists (YBA)

• Term used to pigeonhole a group of British artists active in London from the 1980s to the late 1990s

• The origin of the YBAs can be traced back to a 1988 warehouse show in London which was curated by Damien Hurst entitled Freeze

• The term developed from a series of six exhibitions namely, Young British Artists I to Young British Artists VI, held between March 1992 and November 1996 at the Saatchi Gallery, London

• The earliest core members of the group attended Goldsmiths’ College, London, in the late 1980s, under the guidance of Michael Craig-Martin, Richard Wentworth and others

• Subject-matter varies but Marcel Duchamp’s influence is clear especially in the eminence given to conceptual art, found objects and unconventional, even amusing interpretations of everyday life

• Joseph Beuys is also a major influence in investigation of the positioning of the artist within society

Notable ExamplesDamien Hurst

The Physical Impossibility of Death

in the Mind of Someone Living 1992

Gavin TurkCave 1991

And the birds...

Sarah Lucas Two Fried Eggs and a Kebab 1992

Tracey EminMy Bed 1998

The Shop‘In early 1992, I held my first one-person show, at a gallery called City Racing. It was called "Penis Nailed to a Board". A load of people went to the pub afterwards and that was where I got into conversation with Tracey... I think she enjoyed my work just because it was very bold, and I think she liked the look of me. I remember her saying she liked the fact that she saw me laughing in the corner of the gallery.’

In 1993, Sarah Lucas opened a shop with fellow artist Tracey Emin, called simply The Shop at 103 Bethnal Green Road in Bethnal Green. The shop sold works by the two of them, including t-shirts and ash trays with Damien Hurst’s picture stuck to the bottom for £5.

One of the reasons I become interested in the feminine was that I wasn’t successful. I lived with [the artist] Gary Hume. I was reading a lot of feminist writings and that led to arguments, because I was angry with him for being so successful. And not just him, but lots of people, most of my good friends – but him, being my nearest and dearest, he really got the worst of it. I don’t get so aggressive when I’m drunk now – but I used to come home furious from openings and fancy dinners, and he’s get the brunt of all that anger.

Feminist Art

Helen Chadwick In the Kitchen 1977

Cindy ShermanUntitled #97  1982

Au Naturel 1994

Pauline Bunny 1997

Chicken Knickers 1997

Beyond the Pleasure Principle 2000

Self Portraits 1990-1998

Eating a Banana 1990 Fighting Fire with Fire 1996

Human Toilet Revisited  1998Here we see the artist smoking her ‘first fag of the day’ as she squats on a toilet.

‘Since the early 1990s Sarah Lucas has challenged sexual stereotypes in a variety of provocative works. In this series of self-portraits she turns against the art-historical tradition of the female seductress or muse, and presents herself in a deliberately androgynous, and occasionally aggressive, series of poses. She adopts masculine gestures and stances, and shows herself in unisex clothing like jeans and T-shirts. These images also raise questions about the role and appearance of the modern artist. In contrast to the cliché of the artist as an anguished male, Lucas shows herself as an ordinary person in emphatically ordinary surroundings.’

Recurring ThemesToilets

Is Suicide Genetic? 1996 The Old In Out 1999

Sunday Sport

Sod You Gits 1990 Fat, Forty and Fabulous 1990

Fags

Where Does It All End? 1994/95 Dreams Go Up In Smoke 2000

‘Britart's original bad girl’The Independent 2008