SARAH LUCAS AND THE QUOTIDIAN OBJECT

Imogen Perry
THAP1211 Studio Theory A: Extended topic area Presentation
Amanda Williams
24th March 2009

SARAH LUCAS AND THE QUOTIDIAN OBJECT

Sarah Lucas is a contemporary British artist. Lucas is known for assembling ordinary objects into art. She is recognized for her visual puns, sexually suggestive themes and forms that resemble male and female bodies.

Sarah Lucas, The Old In Out, Installation view.
Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York 1998.

Over the years toilets have appeared continuously in Lucas’ work. Here Sarah Lucas has made a sculpture of toilets. There are eleven toilets simply spread out in the room. Nine of the toilets have been cast in resin. They are translucent and vary in colour. One is just a toilet and the other is covered in cigarettes stuck down to form a pattern.

Sarah Lucas, The Old In Out.
Cast polyurethane resin, 42 x 50.8 x 36.8.
Tate Modern London 1998.

Is this Art?

Sarah Lucas comments, “I like the idea of something uncouth being elegant. Toilets are unsung heroes of our hygienic lives. Why don’t we celebrate them?" (Lucas: 21).

Lucas has transformed a mass-market utilitarian object into a challenging work of art. The first toilet to be acknowledged as art was by Marcel Duchamp in 1917. Duchamp used a commonplace urinal and argued that anything can be art especially the normal everyday objects known to everyone. Lucas has used the same concept but as Eleanor Heartney says, “No artist can avoid borrowing the ideas of others.” (Heartney: 43). Lucas’ toilet is included in the exhibition The Old In Out where the collection of sculpture symbolized humanity. The toilet is a metaphor for the body being a waste disposal, as illustrated in the pointed and explanatory title. The toilet’s form and colour has changed. It’s organic. It no longer functions like a perfunctory toilet. It’s intentionally fake looking. This is how an “ordinary” toilet becomes art.

Sarah Lucas, Solid Gold Easy Action.

Ford Capri, hydraulic pump, 133 x 167 x 439.5.
Sadie Coles HQ, London 1997.

This sculpture by Lucas is also a modernist design titled Solid Gold Easy Action. The work features a gold Ford Capri with hydraulics moving to give the impression of two people having sex in the car. Lucas has used a manufactured object but has given the car a context, which validates its transformation into art. The function of the car is irrelevant. The car is art because it generates for the viewer multiple and contradictory meanings for instance, while sex in cars is generally considered degrading for women how do they feel about sex in a solid gold car? Does the type of car modify the moral?

Can Art be justified and defined as Art simply by having an artist’s name behind it? If any of Lucas’ objects were in their normal context, for instance, on the street or in a house they would remain simply objects. However, in an incongruent context her objects pose new questions and engage the viewer in a powerful reassessment of what is familiar and what is alien. With humour and irony Lucas tilts reality and makes the pieces of it resonate.

Bibliography

1. Collings, Mathew. Sarah Lucas. London: Tate Publishing, 2002
2. Heartney, Eleanor. Art and Today. London: Phaidon Press Limited, 2008

Footnotes

1. Eleanor Heartney, Art and Today. (London: Phaidon Press Limited, 2008), 43.
2. Mathew Collings, Sarah Lucas. (London: Tate Publishing, 2002), 21.

Artworks

1. Lucas, Sarah. The Old In Out, 1998. Installation view. Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York. Reproduced by Larry Lame, Sarah Lucas (London: Tate Publishing, 2002), 49.
2. Lucas, Sarah. The Old In Out, 1998. Cast polyurethane resin, 42 x 50.8 x 36.8. Tate Modern London. Reproduced by Larry Lame, Sarah Lucas (London: Tate Publishing, 2002), 12.
3. Lucas, Sarah. Solid Gold Easy Action, 1997. Ford Capri, Hydraulic pump, 133 x 167 x 439.5. Sadie Coles HQ, London. Reproduced by Mike Bruce, Sarah Lucas (London: Tate Publishing, 2002), 106.