Sarah Lucas talks to Ben Luke about her influences—from writers to film-makers and, after all, different artists—and the cultural experiences which have formed her life and work.
Lucas, born in London in 1962, is without doubt one of the most vital artists of her era, each within the UK, the place she was related to the Nineties motion often called the Younger British Artists, and internationally, the place she has been the topic of a number of important current institutional exhibitions.
Her apply primarily consists of sculpture, however it’s typically offered in distinctive installations in dialogue with pictures, within the type of prints or wallpaper. Her work is characterised by sardonic and ribald humour, knowledgeable by colloquial British language but additionally shot by way of with feminist idea and social commentary.
Shaped from a wealth of supplies, lots of them on a regular basis discovered objects like newspapers, meals, furnishings, cigarettes and clothes, her sculptures virtually at all times evoke the physique, nevertheless crudely lowered or abstracted. And whereas a humdrum frankness and bawdiness are ever-present, Lucas’s sense of the unusual and the uncanny find her work inside the legacies of Dada, Surrealism and absurdist artwork in Europe and the US.
She discusses her revolutionary strategy to exhibition-making, and the liberating collaborations with Franz West that influenced them. She discusses how Yoko Ono knowledgeable a few of her current work. She displays on an anarchic collaboration with the Austrian collective Gelitin. Plus, she provides perception into her working practices and studio life.
This podcast is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects, the humanities and tradition app.
The free app gives entry to an unlimited vary of worldwide cultural organisations by way of a single obtain, with new guides being added commonly. They embrace Tate, whose 4 UK galleries embrace Tate Liverpool, the place Sarah Lucas had a present in 2005, and Tate Britain, the place her survey is going down in autumn 2023. There are additionally guides to a number of different museums and galleries the place she has had necessary exhibits, together with the Whitechapel Gallery in London and the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. Obtain the app and also you’ll uncover that the information to the Hammer has options on its assortment and non permanent exhibitions, together with Sanford Biggers’s outstanding sculpture Oracle, which the artist discusses in depth throughout a number of audio options.