Sarah Lucas and the work cycles behind VENUS VICTORIA
Published on 08/22/2026 at 15:00 | Editorial responsibility: Rafael Müller, Editor-in-Chief AD HOC NEWS
Sarah Lucas has built an oeuvre that turns cigarettes, chairs and fried eggs into sharp reflections on gender and power. Her recent public commission VENUS VICTORIA at New York’s New Museum plaza underlines how her recurring motifs keep gaining new resonance.
Work cycles from the 1990s onward
From the early 1990s, Sarah Lucas became closely associated with the Young British Artists through works like the photograph Self Portrait with Fried Eggs and the sculpture Au Naturel, where everyday props stand in for bodies and desires.
Her sculptures often use furniture, stockings, concrete and domestic materials to stage crude jokes that break down sexist clichés rather than repeat them. Over time she has returned to themes of the reclining nude, the smoking body and the fragmented torso in multiple series.
Series leading toward VENUS VICTORIA
Lucas’s biography, as compiled by Sadie Coles HQ, lists a 2026 New Museum plaza commission titled VENUS VICTORIA, alongside earlier projects like Good Muse at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco and the touring exhibition at Kiasma in Helsinki.
Reports on the New Museum’s plaza program describe VENUS VICTORIA as a large pink-toned reclining figure perched on a concrete washing machine at the corner of Bowery and Prince Street, echoing but also parodying canonical reclining nudes.
Exhibitions, sculptures and context on Sarah Lucas
For further background on Sarah Lucas’s exhibitions, sculptures and institutional collaborations, readers can browse additional AD HOC NEWS coverage and official museum resources.
The work core and materials
Lucas’s practice spans sculpture, installation and photography, but she is best known for sculptural assemblages that turn pub furniture, plaster casts and lingerie into bodies that are both comic and disquieting. These works often stage tension between vulnerability and swagger.
Where the artist stands now
Sarah Lucas continues to develop new sculptural commissions and exhibitions with major museums and foundations while maintaining the recurring motifs that have defined her work since the early 1990s.
Sarah Lucas at a glance
- Artist: Sarah Lucas
- Medium / Genre: Sculpture and installation (conceptual, bodily)
- Born: 1962, London, United Kingdom
- Place(s) of practice: Based in the United Kingdom
- Active since: Early 1990s, with early solo shows in London
- Key work groups: Self Portrait with Fried Eggs, Au Naturel, Bunny sculptures, Good Muse
- Current/last exhibition: Sarah Lucas: NAKED EYE, Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki, October 10, 2025 – March 8, 2026
- Major collections: Tate (London), Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, other institutional collections documented in exhibition records
- Awards: Shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 1993
- Next date: currently no announced date in the 30-day window
Frequently asked questions about Sarah Lucas
What kind of materials does Sarah Lucas use in her sculptures?
Sarah Lucas often uses chairs, mattresses, stockings, concrete, cigarettes and everyday domestic objects, arranging them into suggestive, sometimes crude bodies that address gender, sexuality and power with humor and bluntness.
Where was the exhibition Sarah Lucas: NAKED EYE shown?
The exhibition Sarah Lucas: NAKED EYE was presented at the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma in Helsinki, running from October 10, 2025 to March 8, 2026, and offered a broad overview of four decades of work.
How does the public sculpture VENUS VICTORIA relate to Sarah Lucas’s earlier work?
VENUS VICTORIA continues Lucas’s long-standing interest in the reclining nude and in turning household items into stand-ins for the body, updating these themes through a large-scale figure poised on a concrete washing machine in public space.
This article was produced with a.i. support and editorially reviewed. All statements without guarantee; auction results, exhibition dates and awards may change at short notice.
