BERLIN.- Contemporary Fine Arts is presenting Hurricane Doris, an exhibition of sculptures by Sarah Lucas. The artist’s sixth solo exhibition with the gallery encompasses a new group of soft sculptures from her ongoing body of Bunnies as well as a work in bronze from the same series.
The first Bunnies were created as early as 1997 and are becoming increasingly timeless. The new, anthropomorphic figures made out of stuffed pantyhose reclining on chairs are a perpetuation of Lucas’ recognisable visual language bordering on the surreal. Deploying highly gender-coded found objects such as high heels and nylon stockings, Lucas inflates the notion of female objectification to its apex, only to invert it with an ungainly, exaggerated pose. Reminiscent of the reclining female nude, Lucas’ thin figures with globular breast comically sprawl their elongated limbs in all directions, seeming at once aggressive and fragile, concurrently self-confident and vulnerable, caught in an awkward moment. While her early Bunnies were made in plain flesh tones, this new generation has acquired brightly coloured socks and fashionista shoes.
Cast from soft sculptures in stuffed nylon, the new bronze sculpture mirrors its pulpous counterparts in its form as on its surface. DICK ‘EAD is a figure blatantly showing off her both male and female attributes, positioned on a vintage barber’s chair out of steel and concrete. Much like her stilettoed companions in soft flesh, her open, laid-back pose in polished bronze simultaneously radiates a vulgar hypermasculinity and a seductive vulnerability. The effect is the one of blurring lines between humour and abjection, all the while it thrives on a tension between hard and soft, creating a material clash. ANGEL, the plaster bust with which Lucas erected a monument to her artist friend Angela Bulloch in 2017, seems to be enthroned or suspended above reconciling the parties.
The exhibition gathers Lucas’ new and older sculptures which tirelessly challenge gender stereotypes and confront the viewer with investigations of sexuality and identity in a playful and ironic way.
Sarah Lucas (born 1962 in London) studied at the Working Men's College (1982–83), London College of Printing (1983–84), and Goldsmith's College (1984–87). Last year, Lucas had her first retrospective in China at the Red Brick Art Museum, Beijing (2019), and her first retrospective in USA Au Naturel, which travelled from New Museum, New York (2018) to the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2019). In 2015, Lucas represented Britain at the 56th Venice Biennale, with the exhibition I SCREAM DADDIO. She has had numerous exhibitions in major institutions such as Legion of Honor | Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (2017), Whitechapel Gallery, London (2013), Henry Moore Institute, Leeds (2012), Museo Diego Rivera Anahuacalli, Mexico City (2012), Tate Liverpool (2005), Kunstverein Hamburg (2005), Kunsthalle Zürich (2005), Tate Britain, London (2004), Tate Modern, London (2002), Freud Museum, London (2000), Museum Ludwig, Cologne (1997), Museum Boymans-van Beunigen, Rotterdam (1996), Museum of Modern Art, New York (1993).
