ART CITIES:San Francisco-Sarah Lucas
Sarah Lucas came to prominence in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s as a member of the Young British Artists (YBAs). She has gained notoriety for creating confrontational and often humorous work, which mediates between the absurd and the abject, the ribald and the poetic. Many sculptures showcase the crudeness of stereotypical conceptions of gender and sexuality.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco Archive
Sarah Lucas in her solo exhibition “Good Muse” presents two new works as well as a selection of recent sculptures in dialogue with the Legion of Honor Collection of works by Auguste Rodin on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of his death. By confronting Rodin’s nudes with Lucas’s naked truths, the exhibition draw attention to the palpable eroticism in much of Rodin’s work, and simultaneously emphasize the dramatic shift in the cultural understanding and representation of sexuality and gender that has taken place over the course of the 20th Century. From the outset, Lucas has been adopting and subverting stances associated with male behavior; aiming to debunk traditional notions of femininity. Her early penchant for androgyny, reflected in her groundbreaking self-portraits of the ‘90s, has filtered into her current sculptural work. Many of her furniture-bound headless bodies fashioned from stuffed tights flaunt both male and female attributes and attitudes. Recognizable body parts such as legs and breasts multiply and merge to create surreal hybrids: bodies are recomposed out of suggestive fragments. “Titti Doris” (2017), a work from this series, finds its home among Rodin’s studies and models in plaster. Made for the occasion is “Daddio in the Sky” (2017). The dramatic new mixed-media work evoking the pierced flesh of Saint Sebastian will be placed among Rodin’s bronzes anchored in religion and mythology. Using rods of light pushed through a mattress, Lucas’s piece foregoes a literal interpretation of the biblical figure, but the added tits make the impact less gender specific. In the rotunda of the Legion of Honor and two adjacent galleries are on presentation Lucas’s Muses: “Michele”, “Margot”, and “Pauline” (all 2015). Modeled and named after real women, the waist-to-toe plaster casts of the artist’s friends draped atop and around domestic furniture exude intimacy and candor. Reclined or sitting with legs splayed, the figures have cigarettes incongruously and suggestively projecting out of private regions.
Info: The Legion of Honor, Lincoln Park, 100 34th Avenue (at Clement Street), San Francisco, Duration: 15/7-17/9/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Sun 9:30-17:15, https://legionofhonor.famsf.org
