Sarah Lucas

Along with Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst, and Jenny Saville, Sarah Lucas rose to prominence in the 1990s as part of the iconoclastic cohort known as the Young British Artists. From the start, her irreverent practice—which spans sculpture, installation, photography, and mixed-media work—has poked fun at British culture, sexual norms, gender roles, and notions of propriety. Lucas pushes the limits of figurative representation; euphemisms, visual puns, and appropriated objects abound throughout her oeuvre. She regularly incorporates food, furniture, tights, and cigarettes into her work, contorting them into abject, hyper-sexualized genitals and fragmented human bodies. She’s also made cast concrete, plastic, and bronze sculptures. Lucas has exhibited in New York, Los Angeles, London, Berlin, Paris, Zürich, Tokyo, Seoul, and beyond; in 2015, she represented Great Britain at the Venice Biennale. Her work has been collected by the Tate, the Centre Pompidou, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and Museo Jumex, among many other institutions. In 2014, her sculpture Ace in the Hole (1998) sold for $905,000 at auction.