'Happy Gas': Sarah Lucas at Tate Britain
This 'vindaloo of sculpture, photography and text' makes for a 'grubbily fascinating' exhibition
Sarah Lucas, now 60, is "one of the most enduring of the Young British Artists" of the 1990s, said Ben Luke in the Evening Standard. Lucas was slower than many of her fellow YBAs to make her mark, but she has gone from strength to strength in the decades since. Her photographs and sculptures – uncanny, surreal, often made out of found objects – place her in a European absurdist tradition, but they also display a "cackling Britishness".
This "fantastic" new exhibition covers her career from 1991 to the present day with "typical" irreverence. Although nominally a retrospective, it omits many of her most famous works: for instance, there's no "Two Fried Eggs and Kebab" (1992), slapped on a table to form a "sardonic" nude. The exhibition's "guiding motif" is chairs, often sat upon by human-like figures made out of stuffed, bulging tights. It is "an intoxicated – and intoxicating – show" that proves Lucas is "an artist at the height of her powers".
There are "gigantic resin sandwiches, big as king-sized beds and with dubious Spam-like fillings", said Adrian Searle in The Guardian. There's a burnt-out Jaguar covered in cigarettes; "raw chicken underwear"; and "photos of the artist on the lavvy". "Happy Gas" is "a wonderfully theatrical and surprising" show. Lucas's "boozy, laddish" sense of humour is inescapable here, said En Liang Khong in The Daily Telegraph. In "The Old Couple" (1991), "false dentures and a wax dildo perch on a pair of rickety chairs". You can see plaster casts of the artist's close friends, complete with cigarettes "jammed up their orifices". Sometimes, her "scuzzy wit" translates into something "genuinely disturbing": for "Bunny" (1997), for instance, she packed a pair of pantyhose with stuffing until the "seams stretched" and the material took on "the texture of mottled flesh". Elsewhere, however, it just looks crass. At one point we see a huge photo of the artist holding "a raw plucked chicken" over her groin; another work involves a cigar and a pair of walnuts placed atop a "glowing" toilet bowl. "Geddit?" Frankly, many works here are "as funny as lead" and "about as rebellious as paper doilies".
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
"It is what it is, and it isn't Frans Hals," said Laura Freeman in The Times. If you're "offended by boobs, gussets and wanking, don't go to 'Happy Gas'". But it's an evocative "slice of 1990s life". Lucas is entertainingly "puerile": "Five Lists" (1991), for example, is simply a taxonomically complete litany of insults. Yet she is capable of sophistication, too: her pantyhose sculptures, a dozen of which feature here, are "stirring, affecting, poignant even". They are unsettlingly lifelike – indeed, "it's as if Picasso's 'Demoiselles d'Avignon' had escaped the frame and gone on a Blackpool hen-do". Love Lucas or loathe her, the "vindaloo of sculpture, photography and text" on display here makes for a "grubbily fascinating" exhibition.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
'Consumers fed up with food costs ditch big brands'
Today's Newspapers A roundup of the headlines from the US front pages
By The Week Staff Published
-
What would it be like in jail for Trump if he's convicted?
Today's Big Question The Secret Service has begun grappling with how to protect a former president behind bars
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US Published
-
How much can you save shopping secondhand?
The Explainer Many Americans are buying pre-owned items to counteract the effects of inflation
By Becca Stanek, The Week US Published
-
On the trail of India’s wild lions at Sasan Gir National Park
The Week Recommends The sanctuary is a 'roaring' conservation success
By The Week UK Published
-
Recipe: almond marmalade cake
The Week Recommends This syrupy cake can be toasted for brunch
By The Week UK Published
-
Properties of the week: houses with enchanting gardens
The Week Recommends Featuring pretty homes in Hampshire, Devon and West Sussex
By The Week UK Published
-
Venice Biennale 2024: from the good to the bad to the downright 'bizarre'
The Week Recommends Central exhibition features the work of some 330 artists
By The Week UK Published
-
Sunset Song: gripping theatre that's 'close to magic'
The Week Recommends Morna Young's 'first-class adaptation' of Lewis Grassic Gibbon's classic novel
By The Week UK Published
-
Challengers: 'the most purely pleasurable film of the year so far'
The Week Recommends Zendaya plays a former tennis player turned coach in this 'almost ridiculously' sexy drama
By The Week UK Published
-
Baby Reindeer: a 'compelling and unforgettable' series
The Week Recommends Comedian Richard Gadd's disturbing Netflix drama about stalking
By The Week UK Published
-
Daniel Wallace's 5 favorite books that should not be forgotten
Feature The author recommends works by Italo Calvino, Evan S. Connell, and more
By The Week US Published