Sarah Lucas has been documenting her life for over 30 years now and nothing much has changed, the themes she began as a YBA are the themes she uses today in a major retrospective of her work – Happy Gas. And that is not a good thing because her work has always been a metaphor for the demeaning class and gender stereotypes she has felt she had to fit in to and returns to even now, writes Michael Holland.
The chairs as plinths are still there, the breeze blocks, the toilets, the cigarettes and the huge photographic works that make her the voyeur looking down on us.
The voyeur as opposed to the object of the male gaze dressed up in stockings, and boots and draped over a chair in an uncomfortable position; the woman eating a banana to provide all the Finbar Saunders in the land a collective ‘Phwooar’ moment, and the woman just sitting on the toilet.
The minimalist breeze block plinths are mirrored in the Tate Britain walls to add another Lucas touch to this monumental retrospective of her work. Although I like to think of them as a nod towards the iconic and rage-inducing Equivalent VIII, the sculpture by Carl Andre comprised of 120 bricks.
Again, concrete is also used to create art. From the functional breeze blocks to casts of friends’ bodies to sculptures on the gallery’s front lawn of two giant marrows – Florian and Kevin – pointing a finger at men who will let women use vegetables for making meals but rarely let them near the allotment where the men will have annual competitions to see who’s got the biggest.
My favourite was Mumum, a piece made up of boobs created from stuffed tights on a chair frame. At once creating the security of a Mum’s body and evoking the noise of a baby suckling.
Happy Gas is a real joy to see if only to watch the faces as they get closer and closer to an artwork to ascertain what they are looking at and realise it is a vagina with a cigarette poking out of it.
Tate Britain, Millbank, SW1 until January 14th. Admission: £17, £5.
Booking: www.tate.org.uk
