Exhibition: Sarah Lucas: Happy Gas showing at Tate Britain an exploration of sex, class and gender
In September, Tate Britain will present a survey of the work of an internationally-acclaimed artist celebrated for her explorations of sex, class and gender.
Happy Gas will bring together more than 75 of Sarah Lucas’ works spanning four decades, from early breakthrough sculptures and photographs to new works being shown for the first time.
Created with the artist and presented in her own voice, this survey will take a fresh look at Lucas’s practice to date.
Ms Lucas rose to prominence among the young British artists of the early 1990s.
She went to Goldsmiths College from 1984 until 1987 and showed her work in Freeze, the legendary exhibition curated by Damien Hirst in 1988.
Tate Britain’s exhibition will begin with some of Ms Lucas’s early works from this era, including those made from tabloid newspaper spreads like Sod You Gits 1990 and Fat, Forty and Flab-ulous 1990.
These introduce the artist’s use of word-play, as well as her interest in feminist discourse and representations of the female body.
Her early career will also be reconsidered as part of a wider story, from her childhood to her life today, highlighting her ongoing examination of social conditions beyond the confines of the art world.
Ms Lucas’ use of chairs, and her evocation of seated figures, will have a central role in the exhibition.
Across her career, she has often taken domestic furniture and imbued it with a humorous and unnerving honesty about sex and desire.
The exhibition will go on to explore the growing range of materials used in Ms Lucas’s sculpture, including bronze, resin and concrete.
This change was a major departure from the techniques she had been using for decades, including tights and stuffing, cigarettes and food, which were chosen for their immediate availability.
Sculptures will be set against large-scale photographs of the artist from throughout her career, including her earliest and most well-known portrait Eating a Banana 1990.
A highlight of the exhibition will be a large gallery of recent sculptures made between 2019 and 2023, including 10 works which are being displayed for the very first time.
Sarah Lucas: Happy Gas will be shown at the Tate from September 28 until January 14, 2024.
www.tate.org.uk/press/press-releases/sarah-lucas-happy-gas
Picture: Got a Salmon On by Sarah Lucas 1997 Picture: Sarah Lucas, courtesy Sadie Coles HQ, London
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