Jason Haam is pleased to present SARAH LUCAS: Supersensible, Works 1991-2012, the first solo exhibition of Sarah Lucas in Asia. Featuring a selection of works spanning the years 1991 to 2012, the exhibition surveys the career of one of the most highly regarded contemporary artists.
The title of the exhibition references Lucas’ first solo exhibition in New York, Supersensible, with Barbara Gladstone Gallery in 1995, which featured the artist’s self-portrait of the same title. Centered around this collaged self-portrait, SARAH LUCAS: Supersensible, Works 1991-2012 explores the ways in which Lucas challenges societal norms, providing insights into the depth and range of her practice over the past two decades.
In Supersensible (1994-1995), the artist is placed in the center of the composition. Painted on top of tabloid clippings, the image of Lucas with her legs spread apart—a familiar and recurring pose which often makes an appearance in her self-portraits—embodies the artist’s brazen and confrontational attitude.
Working in a range of media, Lucas has continually addressed ideas of gender, sexuality, and nationhood, often employing bold and provocative humour. Often using found objects—such as food, furniture, tabloid excerpts, and tights—Lucas transforms seemingly ordinary materials into works of art, obscuring the boundaries between the familiar and the unfamiliar. The materials that the artist uses, extracted from their intended contexts, dramatise the abject absurdity of the subject matter. Through a distinctive and often abrasive humour, the artist raises awareness of the structural expectations of femininity and masculinity.
While the importance of earlier works, made from found objects, continues to prevail, Lucas began to experiment with abstraction through the NUDS series in 2009. Inspired by the discovery of a crushed sculpture in her garden shed—a distorted version of one of the Bunny series she began in 1997—Lucas used stockings and stuffing to create organic and biomorphic forms rather than specific anatomies, while retaining an essential sense of fragility. HARD NUD, a cast bronze rendition of this series, recreates the contorted shapes and texture of stuffed stockings.
Honest and raw, Lucas’ body of work addresses the discussion surrounding normative gender roles in contemporary culture. The powerful and tactile aesthetics of the artist’s body of work present not only a socio-political but also a psychological commentary on mortality, sexuality, and identity.
As a member of the Young British Artists (YBA), Sarah Lucas participated in the 1988 exhibition Freeze, organized by Damien Hirst. Lucas has since exhibited at numerous international institutions: Tate (London), Freud Museum (London), Tecla Sala (Barcelona), Museum Ludwig (Cologne), Portikus (Frankfurt), the Museum of Modern Art (New York), Kunsthalle Zurich, Kunstverein Hamburg, Legion of Honor (San Francisco), Whitechapel Gallery (London), and many more. In 2015, Lucas represented the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale with her exhibition I SCREAM DADDIO. Most recently in 2018, the artist had her first American retrospective Sarah Lucas: Au Naturel at the New Museum in New York and the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, CA.
Sarah Lucas lives and works in Suffolk, UK.
