5 Times Sarah Lucas Redefined Gender Through Art

Lucas, who came of age as an artist during the 80s and 90s, emerged out of the Young British Artist (YBA) movement, which also produced the likes of Tracey Emin, Damin Hirst, and Chris Ofili. With an ever-challenging body of absurd, funny, feminist works in a wide range of mediums, Lucas has since become one of the most successful visual artists in the UK. And at a time when women’s agency over their bodies is dominating American conversations and newscycles, this survey of Lucas’ work could not feel more relevant.

“It is evident how influential her work has been for so many younger artists addressing crucial debates about gender and power, the body, and the fluidity of identity,” says the exhibition’s co-curator, Margot Norton. “Her works also have particular resonance in this current moment of cultural reckoning, with widespread revelations about pervasive misconduct coming to light in movements such as #MeToo.

“Her works get right to the core of many of the issues that have long affected society, many of which are coming to light today.”

Lucas' use of everyday materials and audacious subject matter has helped keep the art world on its toes for the last twenty years, and has produced conversations about gender, sexuality, and power with irresistible, subversive humor. In honor of her retrospective, here are five Lucas pieces that prompt us to reexamine the ways we think about gender and the body.

Bearing the same name as the retrospective, Au Naturel is one of Lucas' most recognizable works. Despite being constructed out of pedestrian objects—a mattress, a pair of melons, two oranges, a cucumber, and a bucket—this piece packs a punch. It is subtly subversive, suggestive, and funny all at once: The melons tucked into two holes in the mattress resemble breasts, the configuration of the cucumber and oranges looks like a penis, the vegetables have been arranged in a way that resemble sex objects.

Au Naturel initially reads as “dirty,” but also recalibrates the way we view sex. Like much of Lucas’ work, it asks the viewer to question what they are looking at, and challenges preconceived notions of what constitutes sex objects and what constitute art.

One of Lucas' signatures is her use of pantyhose, which she typically fills with wool or cotton fluff in a way that comments on the female form. In Bunny Gets Snookered, originally created in 1997, she uses those materials, along with metal wire, to create eight figures and arranges them around a snooker table.

"Bunny #8," for instance, is truncated and seated. At the waist of the figure, there is another pair of tights that have been stuffed to simulate rabbit ears or what could be perceived as arms. Some "bunnies" are slumped over but held in place with a metal clamp. Each is slightly different, with different colored stockings, and lanky appendages that create both a comical and disturbing character to come upon. Each also resembles a collection of body parts while simultaneously defying that perception with their floppy passiveness.

With Bunny, Lucas challenges the link between pantyhose and femininity: Although we’ve been conditioned to view tights as dainty and sexy, the way they are presented here contradicts that. Rather, they looked dead, tossed aside, and lifeless. And it’s this kind of abject version of femininity that makes it hard to look away.

In addition, there’s a clues in the title of the piece. As the Tate Modern interprets: “The title of the installation reinforces the reading of disempowerment: to be snookered, in the language of the game of snooker, means to be prevented from scoring. This bunny girl is trapped by her femininity, only to be knocked against her fellow bunnies in a game of masculine skill.”

In 1993, Sarah Lucas and Tracey Emin collaborated on “The Shop”—literally, a store they started together in London for fun. There, they began selling T-shirts, badges, and other items with absurd and outrageous phrases such as “I'm so fucky", "Have you wanked over me yet?", "She's kebab", and "Complete arsehole.” The tongue-in-cheek shirts encapsulated the cultural moment, while also offering up a comedic critique of sexism and classism. The Shop eventually turned into a hangout for artists, but also was a space for Emin and Lucas to simply cut loose, make work, and sell art on their own terms.

“Everyone was so anally retentive—while me and Sarah were the antithesis of that.” Emin recounts in an oral history of the space. “People would go: ‘Have you seen them riding their bikes? It's like a performance. Look!’ And we'd go: ‘How else are we supposed to get around?’"

During the 90s, Lucas made a series of self-portraits that played around with her own expression of gender. In Self Portrait with Fried Eggs, the artist sits, legs spread open, in ripped blue jeans and a gray T-shirt with eggs placed over the breast area. She stares into the camera with both arms confidently beside her and feet in clunky shoes on the ground. An ashtray and a pack of Marlboro cigarettes sit next to her. While Lucas’ gaze and stance are commanding, the placement of the eggs over her breasts add a layer of ridiculousness to the photograph.

Roberta Smith, art critic for the New York Times, recently observed: “Over the years, I don’t think any artist’s work has shocked me — mostly in good ways — as often as Ms. Lucas’s. Some of her pieces have initially made me wonder if they are art or some kind of dirty joke. Their unrelentingly challenging attitude is among their strengths.”

Smith is spot on. To view Lucas’ work is to feel as if you are in on some dirty joke.

Arguably one of Lucas' most important and recognizable works, Two Fried Eggs and Kebab has been seen as a companion piece or a response to Judy Chicago's Dinner Party. In it, two fried eggs and a kebab lay on a table alongside an upright photograph of those exact materials laying on a table, so that the viewer can see them from above.

Once again, we find all the signs of a Lucas piece: In the table, there is a gesture to domesticity while the placement of the foods evokes a vagina and breasts; and the whole piece is wrapped up in humor. Here, though, she emphasized themes of feminized labor and servitude as bringing the food to the table transforms into being the food on the table. Despite its simplicity, it’s a piece that will change the way you think about family meals forever.

Disclosure: VICE Media is a media partner of Sarah Lucas: Au Naturel at the New Museum.