The Kunsthalle Mannheim is presenting Sarah Lucas - Sense of Human from June 7 - October 20, 2024, marking British artist Sarah Lucas’ first solo institutional exhibition in Germany. The solo exhibition spans four decades of Lucas’ practice, which is rife with striking visuals and tongue-in-cheek humour, in keeping with the approach of the Young British Artists. Sense of Human is curated by Luisa Heese, Curator, Contemporary Art and Sculpture at the museum. Heese joins STIR in an interview that explores Lucas’ practice and her connection to YBA.

Lucas’ works often critique social models of gender, sometimes through depictions of the female body that are exaggerated such that they become grotesque and surreal. Her works display a clear defiance of Western standards of feminine beauty, which is stretched to the point of mockery. Heese says, “[The artist] moves both wildly and elegantly through projected attributions and social models with which hegemonic masculinity and normative femininity are formed - and shows that sexism and misogyny are part of these gender constructions.”

“...Since these beginnings, she has used humour as a tool to address difficult topics such as death, sexuality and gender. – Luisa Heese, Curator, Contemporary Art and Sculpture, Kunsthalle Mannheim

In the curator’s view, Lucas practices a ‘defiant femininity’, by which she means a form of femininity that flies in the face of social norms and expectations surrounding women, underlining their absurdity with a sharp sense of humour. The contemporary artist has found inspiration in feminist art of the sort created by Judy Chicago, and theories put forth by feminist authors such as Andrea Dworkin (1946 - 2005), who famously denounced sex work and pornography as complicit in the dehumanisation of women.

Heese tells STIR, “Sarah Lucas developed her work based on experiences, visual and linguistic traditions, social manners and understandings of the body in British society in the late 20^th century through precise observations of this environment. Since these beginnings, she has used humour as a tool to address difficult topics such as death, sexuality and gender.” The museum’s presentation focuses closely on this connection, treating viewers to the many bawdry visual puns and metaphors that abound in the artist’s sculptural art and installation art.

Lucas’ association with the Young British Artist community stretches back to the 1980s. Her works resonate with the likes of Damien Hirst and Gary Hume for their “new, snotty, even cheeky visual language,” as Heese points out. In 1993, Lucas also collaborated with fellow YBA Tracey Emin in running The Shop in East London, an art space that tripled up as a social gathering space and a shop that sold handmade merchandise critiquing art institutions, which has cemented her position in contemporary British art.

Sarah Lucas - Sense of Human confronts audiences with a large body of work that seems not to take itself too seriously and yet carries layers of social critique. Hopefully, the exhibition will pave the way for more presentations of subversive, feminist art, of the sort that challenges the very foundations of good taste and artistic beauty.

‘Sarah Lucas - Sense of Human’ is being shown at the Kunsthalle Mannheim from June 7 - October 20, 2024.