women artists • Situation part 4: I’ve been swallowed up by Sarah Lucas’s ‘White Hole’!

Situation part 4: I’ve been swallowed up by Sarah Lucas’s ‘White Hole’!

Sarah Lucas makes me dirty, debauched, decadent, depraved. And as a result is my new favourite. My Favourite lady, my favourite artist, my favourite exhibitionist (exhibitor), my favourite everything.

Continuing it’s organic (orgasmic?) program, Situation is in its fourth incarnation, each exhibition working as a stand-alone show and also as a visual accumulation, each a natural progression from the previous. Lucas, I’m assured, is in complete control over the space and its choreography, selecting to exhibit her work with other artists with whom she feels a particular affinity, in this case, for ‘Situation: White Hole’, Lucas has opted to install her sculptures against back drop of images by Rohan Wealleans, who is quite possibly my new favourite man!

Sarah Lucas makes me wish my toilet was cast from yellow resin and lit with a tube light. She makes me wish soft breast like forms spilt out from said yellow toilet bowl and she makes me wish particles of glitz covered my vagina (despite the discomfort I imagine would ensue!). She makes me wish light bulbs were suspended from coat hangers in my closet and also makes me wish my wardrobe housed a pair of plaster ‘kinky boots’ five sizes too big. I’m hot to trot, I want it all!

Sarah Lucas is lustful, lecherous, lascivious, libidinous, lubricious, lewd, lickerish, and I love it! Lucas has the thoroughly unique ability of making me feel ‘holely’ (!) part of her idiosyncratic landscape, and frankly it is arousing! Wandering among the small white forms hanging from the ceiling, I wonder if they’re shells, or nipples, but resolve I don’t care, both options are delightfully licentious. I contemplate if all mammilla are represented here, like I decided all types of tits were in Miss Jumbo Savaloy’s ‘MumMum’. Studying each form, as if it’s a precious diamond (going cross eyed in the process), I make my way through the jungle of suspended shells/nipples, eventually arriving at a set of large scale images, concupiscently displaying glitter covered vaginal terrain.

Installation shot from ‘Situation: White Hole’, Rohan Wealleans (L-R) ‘Summer Morning Evanescence’, ‘Bridesmaids’, ‘Green Jimsonweed’ behind Sarah Lucas’s ‘Jesus’.

Throughout ‘Situation: Sarah Lucas’ the back wall of the space has been titivated with large format prints, consistently functioning as more than just a background for Lucas’s sculptural installations, their domineering presence has continuously thrilled. In ‘White Hole’ the theme of the ‘bodily’ continues, but Lucas’s prints are almost but not entirely obliterated by Rohan Weallean’s images. Presenting portraits of women ‘fully made up’, who shun ‘Au Naturel’ (!?) in favour of skin that glows in bright popping colours, sprinkled with glitter, they’re ready to D.I.S.C.O. The delicate genital folds are adorned with the shell/nipples that now float in the air, centimetres from my face, like white specks of sperm on invisible string. The vaguely remind me of the work of Hannah Wilke, and of course Orlan. The glitter, I decide, directly references Julian Simmon’s video piece from the first Situation, which depicted him splashing his naked torso with a sparkling spectrum, and resolve its all about having fun!

And what is perfect, eureka, wham-bam-thank-you-Sarah Lucas, is that from a certain angle, just as you enter the gallery, ‘Maggi’, one of Lucas’s hovering sculptures, is suspended in mid air, directly in line with one of Weallean’s vaginas. Im quite sure it is Lucas’s genius curation and unsubtly reinforces the point that those writing about Lucas have already suggested- she clearly comments on society’s use of woman as toilet.

Installation shot from ‘Situation: White Hole’, Rohan Wealleans (L-R) ‘Summer Morning Evanescence’, ‘Bridesmaids’, ‘Green Jimsonweed’ as a back drop for Sarah Lucas’s ‘Maggi’.

Presumably the “White Hole” to which the title refers, is the relatively small paper sculpture, which I might have overlooked, had my obsession for walking through the dangling nipples not consumed me! Layers of paper have been cut and folded back to form a cavity, an orifice which could represent a shell, or suggest a cave, but in my prurient, sinful imagination, Lucas forms another vagina. One which might seem plain and ‘vanilla’ after the veritable smorgasbord of Wealleans’ delights! Perhaps it seems out of place in the exhibition, as doesn’t wink and nudge the other works, I’m not even sure of its title and I cant find an image! But one thing is for certain, despite my sexual reading of the work, I realise how surreal everything in ‘Situation’ might all appear.

Forgive the pun, but since I first laid eyes on Lucas’s ‘Tit Teddy’, and ‘MumMum’, I have been and continue to be ‘titilated’. This time I’m well and truly seduced by ‘MammeryLooLoo’, which seems to effortlessly combine themes from Miss Jumbo Savaloy with materials used in Rose Bush. Unremittingly self-referential (I learnt from her!), the works have continued to evolve organically, pieces from prior exhibitions have apparently copulated, and procreated, forming altogether new works. Art historical references are plentiful also, the toilet evokes ideas of Duchamp’s ‘Fountain’, only this time ladies can recognise it’s potential too, a sign perhaps, of a change in the times, and one that validates my suggestion that Lucas makes work for “everywoman, everywhere.”

Sarah Lucas ‘Mammerylooloo’, 2012 from ‘Situation: White Hole’

Postcoitally, I always leave ‘Situation’ feeling I’ve reached a climax, one which cannot be bettered. I’ve had the ride of my life! But Lucas proves incessant, interminable, merciless even. She makes me fickle- with each new ‘Situation’ comes a new piece which I proclaim as my most favourite, preferable, dearest. And in doing so, I unwittingly feel I am committing adultery… I’m cheating on Sarah Lucas… with Sarah Lucas!

by Alison Humphrey

Information about ‘Situation’ and Sarah Lucas please visit Sadie Coles website

http://www.sadiecoles.com/artists-web-app/lucas

Situation continues until February 2013 at First Floor, 4 New Burlington Place, London, W1