She Gives as Good as She Gets

Transkript

1 JERRY SALTZ She Gives as Good as She Gets S A R A H L U C A S, S O U P, , p h o to c o lla g e, a p p r o x. 5 x 4 " / S U P P E, P h o to -C o lla g e, ca. 1 3 x 1 0 cm. Part I. An Eye for an Eye gives as good as she gets. She s a codebreaker and a ball-buster, a saboteur a n d a spy. Elegantly in-your-face, Lucas is a smutty, salt-of-the-earth lout whose unequivocal work is raw and loud and startling. It is also efficient a n d concise. In h e r art, Lucas doesn t m ince words and she doesn t waste them either. She gets quickly to the point and the point usually has to do with the ways women are viewed in society. In a recen t interview Lucas talked about the continual in n u en d o, the winks and nudges she gets from m en when merely buying a cucum ber at the m arket: essentially, she takes that objectification to the m ax, pushing it back in society s and often a rt history s face. W hat s startling about h er work is its m aleness, its assum ption of the m ale gaze (or b etter yet, gawk); she shines an J E R R Y S A L T Z is an art critic who lives in New York. His phone num ber is (212) unrem itting light on it basically by m agnifying the power of its lens. Like in Apocalypse Now when M artin Sheen asks a rogue sniper Do you know w ho s in charge here? : Lucas is that sniper who, after a long, silent, steely look as if to say You re n o th in g simply says Yeah. Pure Lucas, the answer is artless, bigger than you are, m ore com plicated than you thought, stronger than you, and has you com pletely sussed. She s an exterm inating angel, but a funny one. A wayzgoose, hootchy-kootchy carnival1' laughter perm eates Lucas s work. If this were the eighties this laughter would be ironic, above-it-all, judgm ental and deconstructive. But Lucas (along with a whole bunch of younger artists including Elizabeth Peyton, Jake and Dinos C hapm an, Sam Taylor Woods, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Jorge Pardo, and W olfgang Tillm anns) represents a shift in the paradigm ; and looking at laughter is a great way to get that shift. A lthough th e re s nothing especially ard ent about h er laughter 77 PARKETT

2 because she takes a w onderfully contradictory, am bivalent stance: She is subject and object, actor and spectator. In h er world I m the object, you re the object, h e s the object, sh e s the object. Because h er art isn t simply oppositional she is able to finally step outside narrow definitions like fem inist o r political art definitions that have kept art ineffective for so long. T he degradation, hilarity and deprivation Lucas depicts is lived by everyone. H er laughter em braces the m acabre, the grotesque, the scatological, an d the reproductive. BITCH (1995) a table outfitted with giant hooter-like m elons bulging out of a tight tee shirt and a packet of sm oked fish hanging suggestively betw een the table s legs objectifies m an s crudest desires and w om an s greatest fears. If you re a m an, it s only the naughty bits, no personality to have to throw out of bed but then BITCH turns the tables on you: a cold, hard, dead kind of blowup doll m uch bigger than you. You w ant to fuck this thing? Lucas seems to be asking. Be my guest. If you re a woman, your intim ate odors and appearance transform into a rank, howling parody but then BITCH suggests provocatively th at perhaps you like your smells and your extrusions, perhaps they tu rn you on. It is obvious that Lucas is interested in the grotesque and the visceral: the exaggerated, the crude, the excessive; the m aterial life o f the body. She s Rabelaisian in this respect. At one p oint in The Good Pantagruel, Rabelais lists 337 words to describe a scrotum including...musty, mouldy, mildewed, dangling, faded, foul, lumpy, dumpy, stumpy, plaited ball-bag. For Lucas the body is not politically closed: T h ere s no one right way to view it. S he s not about victims and assailants, good guys and bad guys; not so Dickensian. Lucas knows a mask when she sees one m en s sexism, for exam ple but unlike h e r eighties counterparts, who view the mask as the im age of everything false and in au th en tic o f hypocrisy itself she leapfrogs over this ja d e d position in ord er to view the mask (of sexism, say) as one that reveals as well as conceals one th at obviously distorts. Lucas s works of art may often be jokes but they are never one-liners; they re layered and intersect with obsession, desire, society, and prior form s of art. W hen Lucas collages photographs of nude women from newspapers into h er work she is saying, This is w hat it s really like ; hers is an undigested, close-tothe-bone, form of collage, unlike, say, R osenquist or W esselman (two obvious predecessors in this regard) who present dollied-up tits-and-ass, finished, form al and endlessly abstracted. Lucas pushes the whole pie back in P o p s face and has a good guffaw doing it. I know that as an A m erican I always secretly wished for girlie pics in our new spapers now I m glad we never had them. They talk about the revolutionary power of laughter: This may be it. Part II. A Cock and Balls Story N ot only is the kind of artist who speaks only when she has som ething to say she has no style, p er se, only a context th at sh e s created for h erself she makes h er art in a m edium that has a long tradition of subversion: collage (and assemblage). Collage hasn t exactly been ignored by h er contem poraries either: in one way or an o th er collage was the m edium o f choice in the eighties in the work o f artists like G ilbert & G eorge, Julian Schnabel, Sigmar Polke, and David Salle. T h eir work was, in effect, an am algam of existing images and m aterials taken from the world and blended into a whole. Unlike these artists and this is an o th er one of those paradigm shifts Lucas d o esn t so m uch build on collage as tear it down. H er work returns collage to the conditions o f its origins in Dada and Surrealism, from H annah H och, K urt Schwitters, and Jo h n H eartfield to Francis Picabia, who in 1920 nailed a stuffed m onkey to a board and titled it PORTRAIT OF CÉZANNE. She takes a little bit from all of them : Schwitters s formal rawness, H eartfield s em otional explicitness and rebus-like images, H ö ch s fem inism cut with the kitchen knife, the found objects o f D ucham p and Man Ray and the devil-may-care attitude of Picabia. H er work is crude, obstreperous, it m eans to offend (n o t to blend), and it distorts form al etiq u ette and "O S A R A H L U C A S, B I T C H, , ta b le, te e -s h ir t, m e lo n s, p a c k e t o f s m o k e d f i s h / M I S T S T Ü C K, T is c h, T - S h ir t, M e lo n e n, v a k u u m v e r p a c k te r F is c h. finish for exam ple, an old, funky-looking mattress, a green cucum ber standing erect on it with two oranges resting below; next to this m an, two biggish yellow m elons for breasts and an em pty bucket for vagina; a sheet of paper is pin n ed to the m attress on which is scrawled the title of the piece: AU NATUREL. W hat Lucas constantly pursues is a hybrid quality, a disjunctive whole w here you can still see all the separate parts. She lacerates, and h er knife cuts both ways; she positions herself inside n o t outside the work. H ere, not there. This isn t an intellectual jo k e or brainy critique of style or subject m atter; h er proximity to it is what makes h er so m uch b etter than a lot of artists who attem pt to critique the m ale gaze. It s interesting to think of AU NATUREL (1994) in term s of some of Cindy S herm an s recen t work involving com estibles or prosthetic body parts in explicit sexual or scatological poses; it gives you som e idea of how good Lucas m ight be. At its best, Lucas s work contains the kind of om nivorous energy of Picasso you m ight laugh reading this: Lucas is no Picasso, but som e o f h e r pieces play on the cru d e transform a- U 78 79

3 Postscript. A P ortrait of Love C ourtney Love s advice to h er young daughter Frances Bean was, You are the first of your generation; forget everything that cam e before you. 2* Lucas seems to be following th at advice. Instead of stepping outside the world in o rd er to show you how w rong everything is, how pictures lie, how sm art she is, she isn t asking perm ission from the generation before, sh e s not trying to find a place; she banks on love, burns with it, really: love, laughter, anger, and am bivalence. In a touchingly h o n est po rtrait, Lucas depicts h er pal Tracey Em in (TRACEY EMIN, 1994). Picturing a fellow p ractitioner of h er own generation and gender; som eone who looks straight at you, who laughs in the portrait the way Lucas laughs in h er art: openly and w ithout sham e; who is herself (a hero, maybe) in spite of it all; who aspires to greatness, and who, like Lucas and the o th er artists of h er generation, is the first o f h er gen eratio n. 1) For a rich explanation of the carnivalesque, see Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World. First published English translation by Hélène Iswolsky (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984). 2) Courtney Love is the lead singer of the grunge-punk group Hole. S A R A H L U C A S, T W O F R IE D E G G S A N D A K E B A B, , f r i e d e g g s, la r g e d o n e r k e b a b, ta b le, a n d p h o to g r a p h o n c a r d b o a r d / Z W E I S P I E G E L E I E R U N D E I N K E B A B, S p ie g e le ie r, g r o ss e s D ö n e r K e b a b, T is c h u n d e in e a u f K a r to n a u fg e z o g e n e P h o to g r a p h ie. SARAH LUCAS, AU NATUREL, 1994, mattress, io ater bucket, melons, oranges, cucumber, approx. 33 x 66 x 57 / Matratze, Eimer, Melonen, Orangen, Gurke, ca. 84 x 168 x 145 cm. tions and abbreviations of the fem ale body that gave Picasso s work such m esm erizing, totem ic power. O nce when Lucas was in New York City, she stayed with a friend of m ine. The evening she left for London my friend found a m arvelous sculpture two sculptures, really on h er w ooden table: a cock and balls. M ade out of cardboard, the cock is eight and a half inches long and covered in tiny cut-outs of m ouths; the balls, also m ade o f cardboard, are similarly covered with eyes. The m ouths on the penis are all lips and teeth and tongue, all sm iling (and why w ouldn t they be); the balls have eyes so th at it seems that they have a life of th eir own, in d ep en d en t from the cock (a tru th that ought to be b etter known). The cock-and-balls reveals Lucas as the down-to-earth m aker of proverbs th at she is, e.g. a penis fingered is a penis pleased. A cock covered with m ouths is a happy cock. Balls with eyes have a m ind of their own... and so on. H ere, an irresistible com parison arises to Louise B ourgeois s savagely hum orous FILLETTE a two-foot latex phallus that she called h er doll. FILLETTE, however, differs in a n u m b er of crucial ways from Lucas s playful offering: It is titled, th erefore serious ; it is a traditional piece of sculpture: it looks like sculpture, it acts like sculpture, it is weighty, clublike. Lucas s piece is a gift an d therefore som e what unnam eable, less like art, m ore to do with a ritualistic potlatch logic. C om pared to FILLETTE, Lucas s penis is small and delicate, fragile and toylike; it s m ore like a rattle or a pinata than a battle axe. You hold Lucas s lovingly handm ade dick in your hands and you are enam ored of it, you finger it and think about Lucas fingering it, fashioning it ju st so and suddenly an erotic void opens up before you

4 S ara h Lucas JERRY SA LT I Sie zahlt kräftig heim Teil I. Auge um Auge zahlt kräftig heim. Sie ist eine Code- B recherin, eine Spielverderberin, eine Saboteurin und eine Spionin; Lucas ist eine dreckige Göre ersten Ranges, deren unzw eideutiges Werk roh, laut u n d schockierend ist. Es ist aber auch aussagekräftig und prägnant. In ih rer Kunst nim m t Lucas kein Blatt vor den M und, sie m acht aber auch nicht viele Worte. Sie kom m t schnell auf den Punkt - u n d d er h at in der Regel m it d er Art und Weise zu tun, wie Frauen in der Gesellschaft gesehen und gezeigt werden. In einem kürzlich geführten Interview sprach sie von «den ständigen A nspielungen», d er heim lichen Anm ache durch M änner, w enn sie bloss au f dem M arkt eine Gurke einkauft. Im G runde greift sie dieses «Zum-Objekt-degradiert-W erden» auf, treibt es auf die Spitze und schleudert es d er Gesellschaft - und oft auch d er Kunstgeschichte - wieder ins Gesicht. Das Ü b erraschende an ihrem W erk ist das «M ännliche», das A nnehm en des m ännlichen Blicks (besser noch: Gaffens). Sie wirft ein unbarm herziges Licht J E R R Y S A L T Z ist Kunstkritiker und lebt in New York. Seine Telephonnummer ist auf diesen Blick, indem sie einfach noch genauer hinschaut u n d noch n äh er rangeht. Es ist wie in Apocalypse Now, als M artin Sheen einen streunenden H eckenschützen fragt «Wissen Sie, wer h ie r zuständig ist?» Lucas ist wie dieser H eckenschütze, der nach einem langen, stillen u n d stahlharten Blick - als wolle er sagen: «Wer bist du überhaupt?» - schlicht sagt: «Ja». Das ist ganz Lucas - die A ntwort ist schlicht ü b erfo rd ern d, kom plizierter als erw artet, einfach überw ältigend und h at uns vollkom m en durchschaut. ist ein v ernichtender Engel, aber einer m it Hum or. Ein schallendes, m ark ersch ü ttern d es Karnevalslachen1! durch d rin g t das W erk von. W ären wir in den 80er Jahren, wäre dieses Lachen vor allem ironisch, es stünde ü b e r allem, wäre verurteilend und dekonstruktiv. Aber Lucas (zusam m en m it ein er ganzen G ruppe ju n g e r K ünstler wie Elizabeth Peyton, Jake u n d Dinos C hapm an, Sam Taylor Woods, R irkrit Tiravanija, Jorge Pardo u n d W olfgang Tillmans) steht für einen Paradigm enw echsel; und die B etrachtung des Lachens ist eine ausgezeichnete M öglichkeit, diesen W echsel zu verstehen. D ennoch ist keine besondere H eftigkeit in ihrem Lachen, weil sie eine w underbar w idersprüchliche, am bivalente H altung einnim m t. Sie ist Subjekt und O bjekt, Schauspielerin u n d Z uschauerin zugleich. In ihrer Welt bin ich das Objekt, bist du das Objekt, ist er das O bjekt, ist sie das O bjekt. Da ihre K unst n ich t einfach oppositionell ist, kann sie aus en g en Definitionen wie «feministisch» o d e r «politisch» heraustreten - D efinitionen, die die Kunst so lange in ihrer W irkung stum pf gem acht haben. Die E rniedrigung, H eiterkeit und E ntbehrung, die Lucas schildert, wird von jed em erlebt. Ih r Lachen um fasst das M akabfe, das Groteske, das Skatologische u n d das R eproduktive d er m enschlichen Existenz. BITCH (Miststück, 1995) - ein Tisch, garn iert m it aus einem engen T-Shirt quellenden M elonen und einem suggestiv zwischen zwei T ischbeinen h än g en den, geräucherten Fisch - fü h rt uns krudeste Männ erphantasien und elem entare Frauenängste vor Augen. Einem M ann erscheint das zunächst n u r etwas dreist, es g eh t ihm nicht bis u n te r die H aut oder die B ettdecke - bis BITCH plötzlich den Spiess u m d reh t u n d ihm ih r anderes Gesicht zeigt: kalt, hart, tot, eine A rt aufblasbare G um m ipuppe u n d viel grösser als er. «Du willst dieses scheussliche Ding ficken?» scheint Lucas zu fragen. «Nur zu, tu dir kein en Zwang an!» Eine Frau dagegen erk en n t sofort die vulgäre, grelle Parodie au f das Aussehen und den G eruch ihres Geschlechts - au f den zweiten Blick legt BITCH d er B etrachterin d an n aber d en provokativen G edanken nahe, dass ih r diese G erüche und R undungen vielleicht ganz lieb sein könnten, vielleicht brin g en sie sie sogar ins Schwelgen u n d m a chen sie scharf? O ffensichtlich hat Lucas es auf das Groteske u n d Viszerale abgesehen: das auf die Spitze G etriebene, Primitive, Exzessive; das b eto n t K örperliche des Leibes. In dieser H insicht ist sie Rabelais durchaus verw andt. An einer Stelle in Gargantua und Pantagruel reih t Rabelais 337 W örter aneinander, um einen H odensack zu beschreiben, u n te r anderen: «... muffiger, schim m liger, verpilzter, baum elnder, verblühter, stinkiger, plum per, pum m eliger, stummeliger, faltiger Eiersack». F ür Lucas ist d e r K örper n ich t politisch eingegrenzt: Es gibt nich t die eine, richtige Art, ihn zu betrachten. Ih r geht es nich t um O pfer und Täter, SARAH LUCAS, NOT TITLED, 1993, papier mâché, approx. 8" high / NICHT BETITELT, Papiermaché, ca. 20 cm hoch. gute und böse Typen, sie hat nicht dieses Dickenssehe. Lucas erk en n t eine Maske, wenn sie eine sieht - m ännlichen Sexismus zum Beispiel; aber anders als ihre Kollegen aus den 80er Jahren, die die Maske als das Bild alles Falschen, U nauthentischen - ja der H euchelei selbst - sehen, m acht sie e in en Bocksprung über diese stum pfgew ordene Auffassung hinweg, um die Maske (des Sexismus) als eine zu betrachten, die sowohl en th ü llt als auch verbirgt, jedenfalls a b er eindeutig verzerrt. Die Kunstwerke von sind oft witzig, a b er es sind niem als reine P ointen. Sie sind vielschichtig und haben m it D ingen wie Besessenheit, Sehnsucht, Gesellschaft u n d frü h eren Form en der Kunst zu tun. W enn Lucas Photos nackter Frauen aus Z eitungen in ihren Collagen verarbeitet, sagt sie: «Genauso ist es wirklich.» Ihre Form d er Collage ist unverdaut, unanständig, anders als etwa bei Rosenquist o d e r W esselman (zwei offensichtlichen Vorgängern in dieser H insicht), die herausgeputzte Titten u n d Arsche darstellen - vollendet, form al u n d u n endlich abstrahiert. Lucas sch leu d ert dem Pop sein e n ganzen Zuckerguss ins G esicht u n d lacht sich PARKETT

5 Sarah L ucas dabei kaputt. Ich weiss, dass ich m ir als A m erikaner insgeheim im m er Photos von nackten M ädchen in unseren Z eitungen gewünscht habe. Jetzt bin ich froh, dass es nie welche gab. Man spricht von der revolutionären Kraft des Lachens - dies könnte sie sein. Teil II. Eine Schwanz-und- Eier-G eschichte ist die A rt K ünstlerin, die n u r redet, wenn sie etwas zu sagen hat. Sie hat keinen Stil per se, n u r einen K ontext, den sie sich selbst geschaffen hat. Sie m acht Kunst m it einem M edium, das eine lange subversive T radition h a t - Collage (u n d Assem blage). Die Collage w urde auch von ih re n Zeitgenossen nicht gerade ignoriert. A uf die eine oder andere Weise war die Collage in den 80er Jah ren auch das bevorzugte M edium von K ünstlern wie Gilb ert & George, Julian Schnabel, Sigm ar Polke und David Salle. Ihre A rbeit war in d er Tat ein Gemisch aus existierenden B ildern u n d M aterialien, die der Welt entnom m en u n d zu einem Ganzen verschm olzen w urden. A nders als diese K ünstler - u n d das ist ein w eiterer Paradigm enw echsel - b a u t Lucas weniger auf d er Collage auf, als dass sie sie dem ontiert. Ihre A rbeit fü h rt die Collage zu den B edingungen ih rer U rsprünge zurück - im Dada und Surrealism us von H annah H och, Kurt Schwitters und Jo h n H eartfield bis hin zu Francis Picabia, der 1920 einen Stoffaffen au f ein B rett nagelte u n d ihm den Titel POR TRÄT VON CÉZANNE gab. Lucas nim m t von allen etwas: die form ale R oheit von Schwitters, die em o tionale D eutlichkeit und Rebus-artigen Bilder von H eartfield, den Fem inism us von H och «mit dem K üchenm esser geschnitten», das objet trouvé von D ucham p und Man Ray und die H o l s-der-teufel- Einstellung von Picabia. Ihre A rbeit ist derb und aufm üpfig, sie will vor den Kopf stossen (nicht h arm onisieren), u n d sie verhöhnt jed e form ale Etikette und Perfektion. So zum Beispiel m it einer alten, m uffig aussehenden M atratze, au f der erigiert eine grüne Gurke steht, m it zwei daneben liegenden A pfelsinen. N eben diesem «Mann» zwei grosse gelbe M elonen für die Brüste und ein leerer Eim er für die Vagina. A uf die M atratze ist ein Blatt Papier geheftet, auf das d er Titel des Werkes gekritzelt ist: AU NATUREL. Was ständig anstrebt, ist eine hybride Q ualität, ein loses Ganzes, in dem alle einzelnen Teile noch erk en n b ar sind. Sie schlitzt auf, u n d ihr Messer schneidet in beide R ichtungen. Sie sieht sich selbst innerhalb des Werks - nicht ausserhalb. Hier, nicht dort. Das ist kein intellektueller Scherz oder eine gescheite Kritik von Stil o d er Inhalt. U nd diese N ähe zum W erk ist genau das, was sie so viel besser m acht als viele Künstler, die versuchen, den «m ännlichen Blick» zu kritisieren. Es ist interessant, AU NATUREL (1994) auf dem H in terg ru n d einiger jü n gerer Werke von Cindy Sherm an zu betrachten, in den en N ahrungsm ittel oder prothetische K örperteile in explizit sexuellen oder skatologischen Posen verw endet w erden. Das verm ittelt eine Vorstellung davon, wie gut Lucas sein könnte. In den besten A rbeiten hat das Werk von Lucas die alles verschlingende Energie eines Picasso. Man m ag ü b er eine solche Aussage lachen; Lucas ist kein Picasso, aber einige ih rer A rbeiten spielen m it den ro h en Transfo rm atio n en u n d R eduktionen des w eiblichen Körpers, die Picassos Werk seine hypnotisierende, totem istische Kraft verliehen. Als einm al in New York City war, w ohnte sie bei einer F reundin von mir. An dem A bend, als sie nach L ondon abreiste, fand m eine F reundin eine w underbare Skulptur - eigentlich zwei Skulpturen - au f ihrem Holztisch: einen Schwanz u n d Eier. D er Schwanz, aus K arton, ist ru n d 22 Z entim eter lang und m it lauter kleinen, aus Papier ausgeschnittenen M ündern übersät; die H oden, ebenfalls aus K arton, sind in d er gleichen Art m it Augen versehen. Die M ünder au f dem Penis bestehen aus L ippen, Z ähnen und Zunge, und sie lächeln alle (warum sollten sie auch nicht); die H oden haben Augen, so dass es scheint, als h ätten sie ein vom Schwanz unabhängiges E igenleben (eine W ahrheit, die w eiter v erbreitet w erden sollte). Diese Schwanz-und-Eier-Geschichte zeigt Lucas nüchtern e Sprichw örtlichkeit, m an denke etwa an englische Ausdrücke wie: a penis fingered is a penis pleased; a cock covered in mouths is a happy cock; balls with eyes have a mind of their own (ein befühlter Penis ist ein erfreu ter Penis, ein in M ündern versteckter Schwanz ist ein glücklicher Schwanz, Eier m it A ugen sind eigenwillig) usw. U nw iderstehlich drän g t sich h ier der Vergleich zum drastischen H u m o r von Louise Bourgeois FILLETTE au f - eines 60 Z en tim eter langen Latex-Phallus, den sie ihre «Puppe» nannte. FILLETTE unterscheidet sich jedoch in einigen w esentlichen Punkten von Lucas spielerischem Angebot. Es hat einen W erktitel, ist also «seriös». Es ist eine traditionelle Skulptur: es schaut aus wie eine Skulptur, es wirkt wie eine Skulptur, es ist schwer und knüppelartig. Lucas A rbeit ist ein G eschenk und d aher n ich t eigentlich benennbar, es u n tersteht w eniger d er Logik d er Kunst als je n e r einer rituellen G abenverteilung. Verglichen m it FILLETTE ist Lucas Penis klein, fein, verletzlich u n d h at etwas von einem Spielzeug; er gleicht eher ein er Rassel oder einem T annzapfen als e in e r Streitaxt. M an h ält Lucas liebevoll gefertigten Schwanz in H änden u n d ist bezaubert, m an befühlt ihn und stellt sich vor, wie Lucas ih n gehalten hab en muss, um ih n gerade so h e r zurichten - u n d plötzlich tut sich ein erotischer A bgrund auf. N achtrag. Ein P orträt Ein Rat von Courtney Love2' an ihre ju n g e Tochter Frances Bean lautete: «Du bist die erste deiner Generation. Vergiss alles, was vor dir war.» Lucas scheint diesem Rat zu folgen. Statt aus der Welt herauszutreten, um uns zu zeigen, wie falsch alles ist, wie die Bild er lügen, wie schlau sie ist, fragt sie die frühere G eneration gar nich t um Erlaubnis bzw. versucht gar nicht, sich in ein Verhältnis zu ihr zu setzen, sondern sie baut au f Liebe, b ren n t m it ihr, wirklich - in Liebe, Lachen, Zorn und Ambivalenz. In einem bestechend ehrlichen Porträt, TRACEY EMIN (1994), stellt Lucas ihre Freundin dar. Sie zeichnet das Bild ein er Künstlerkollegin ih re r eigenen G eneration u n d ihres Geschlechts, einen M enschen, d er einem gerade in die Augen schaut, der in dem Porträt so lacht, wie Sarah Lucas in ih rer Kunst lacht: offen u n d ohne Scham, eine Frau, die trotz allem sie selbst ist (vielleicht sogar eine H eldin), die nach Grossem strebt und die - wie u n d die anderen K ünstler ihrer G eneration - «die erste ih rer G eneration ist». (Übersetzung: Gerhard Frechen) 1) Eine aufschlussreiche Untersuchung des Karnevalesken liefert Michail Bach tin in R a b e la is u n d s e in e W e lt: V o l k s k u lt u r a ls G e g e n k u ltu r, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main ) Courtney Love ist die Leadsängerin der Grunge-Punk- Gruppe «Hole». S A R A H L U C A S, T R A C E Y E M I N, , a c r y lic o n b o a r d, 2 0 x 1 6 / A c r y l a u f M a lk a r t o n, 5 1x41 cm

6 Where Does It All SARAH LUCAS, WHERE DOES IT ALL END?, , wax and a cigarette butt / WOHIN SOLL DAS ALLES FÜHREN?, Wachs und ein Zigarettenstummel. J A N V A N ADRICHEM SARAH LUCAS interviewed by JAN VAN ADRICHEM JAN VAN ADRICHEM: The sculpture WHERE DOES IT ALL END? ( ) deals with many aspects of your work up to now. It is a play on visual and linguistic expressions of anger and aggression. It is the m ould o f your own m outh, so it has a very d irect autobiographical aspect in the sense that you reproduce yourself. And the cigarette is a concrete object from everyday life. So the work is a double track between J A N VAN A D R IC H E M is lecturer in the department of art history at Utrecht University. reality and art and, as such, it shows your interest in a direct and life-im bued art, both in form al and em o tional term s. SARAH LUCAS: I cast my m outh with a cigarette in it, so that there would be a place for it. At the time I was m aking a whole figure, a kind of self-portrait wearing my clothes. The im portant thing about the head was th at it could smoke, and one of the hands was going to be hold in g a can of beer. It was supposed to be me on a bad day. I m ade the m outh separately from the rest of the head, which was a papier m âché balloon. In the end, I co u ld n t incorporate the m outh into the head because the m aterials were too incongruous. Recognizing that the m outh was working m ore successfully on its own, I had to get rid of the rest of it. JA: W hat about the colour of the wax? T he redness has a certain degree of naturalism, but it also represents aggressivity. SL: Yes, it s like a face w ithout skin, really. T h a t s why I chose the colour. It was going to be the colour of the whole figure from the outset. It was supposed to be a vulnerable m om ent, not w ithout aggression but also naked, raw. N ot really angry m ore som ething of a grim ace, a sharp intake of breath, which is what you do w hen you smoke. JA: W hat is the significance of the title, WHERE DOES IT ALL END? SL: It s an exasperated title, really. N ot too hopeful, b u t not absolutely hopeless either. JA: Why did you think that the m outh was enough? Did it have to do with its immediacy? SL: As soon as I put the cigarette in the m outh, it ju st struck me as being funny, vivid. JA: Is vividness im portant? SL: I w ant to m ake things th a t are clear and accessible. In the first place, som ebody s interest has to be aroused. But it s n o t necessarily the only way to seduce somebody. JA: If you opt for this vividness, does th at explain why you use so m any different media? You also do photo works, video works, drawings, text pieces... SL: I ll use anything I can. I depend on the idea that art can t be taken away from me by financial or m aterial lim itations. Take the list piece: I could have written it with my finger in the sand if necessary. I can sit and eat d in n er and move the food around on my plate to m ean som ething. O n the o th er hand, the choice of m aterials is crucial to what the final piece is. For exam ple, if I had used som ething o th er than real m elons in BITCH say, a rough plaster shape with nipples on it that I d m ade myself it would have been som ething com pletely different. The fact that the m elons are real is im portant. They really are it. It s n o t me, n o t an illustration. JA: It s an expression of m ental energy. Could you express yourself in any m edium, then? SL: Every tim e I make an object, that object has found its way, and the m aterials I have used have found th eir way w ithin th at process. These things should come about simultaneously, but of course they d o n t. So th e re s a kind of push-pull between what I m doing and an o th er possibility. Things come around again and again. O ne day there is enough in front of me to think, Yes, I can do som ething with this. T hat m eans m aking som ething that can be perceived all at once, although you may have to walk around it. T he idea and the m aterials all have to com e together in a good relationship. It comes around in my head like that: things I have been thinking about for years; bits and pieces of an idea. I have half an idea all the time and it m ight be quite a good half an idea. But half an idea d o esn t m ake an object. N or can it be contrived. It m ust be lived out and the m aterials m ust be allowed to live it out. So I m in an odd relationship of m utual respect with these things. You can t simply ram your ideas into these m aterials o r you would end up with a tightarsed, m ediocre artwork. JA: In BITCH you present two m elons an d they function paradoxically, rem aining recognizable as m elons but at the same time becom ing breasts in an analogy you invent. It is som ething that is not there by itself, but it is your associative capability, your inventiveness to think of the possibility in this sort of construction. SL: Yes, and alm ost everybody does see it that way. It s like pushing buttons. JA: Do you think that this capacity is uniquely yours, or is it a m ore general one? SL: Everybody does it, b u t m ost people d o n t both er to make the kind of things I make. They do it in their heads. This idea of uniqueness is strange because everything is connected to everything else. So w hat is unique about anybody is kind of residual, like style. You d o n t have to in tend a style, it will ju st be there. I do things in a certain way which is partly of the m om ent, what happens to be there at a given time. But I try to avoid being too stylish. JA: So you have a preference for a lack of style. SL: I have a preference for an exem plary lack of style. JA: Your work does have an im m ediate im pact. You try to m ake it as dense as possible. It seems to be the PARKETT

7 Sarah L ucas result of an econom ical attitude. It has a clear structure and its form is sober. Because it is w ithout red u n d an t aspects, it is visually very direct. But next to these form al and structural aspects there are also the issues you focus on. They are com m ents on how wom en are stereotyped. Is fem inism very im portant to you? SL: C ertain fem inist literature, like A ndrea Dworkin, opened up the idea for me of having m ore subject m atter. It s n o t so m uch w hether you agree o r disagree with her, but m ore the idea that it is possible to look at things radically differently. T h at really grabbed me. I particularly liked D workin s titles Pornography, Intercourse, and so on. I loved the idea that you could call a book Pornography, and everyone gets it down off the shelf. Hilarious. At the tim e, due to my extrem ely lim ited resources, I was trying to keep my work as cheap as possible. I d chosen tabloid newspapers as my m aterial. W hen I m ade the posters by blowing up centrefolds from the Sunday Sport, it was very m uch with that attitude, a kind of bloodym indedness. JA: So one could say th at your technique, the way you m anipulate the stuff, was influenced by feminism: that looking through the lens of fem inism you were able to com pletely transform your work. Is that also a m etaphor for what artistic activity m ight be in your case? SL: Yes, it was a huge tu rn aro u n d for me. But on the o th er hand I never w anted to be an artist on a soapbox. In a way I m rom antic about art. I want it to be really refined. I d o n t want it to be ringing in my ears and be sick up to the back teeth of it. JA: T here are works, photographs, in which you present yourself as a very m asculine person... SL: T h at s how it appears, depending on the stance I adopt. A lot of it is ju st observation. For instance, on a bus, two women will sit together on one seat w hereas two m en will sit on separate seats, legs wide apart, preferably with som e seats in betw een them, and they ll have a conversation across the whole bus. W hen the bus suddenly fills up they get stranded. I w ent for a drink one night with a friend of m ine w ho s a bit of a sexist, and we were arguing about som ething and I said, Well, OK, I m gonna sit like this! I spread my legs and I could see it m ade him uncom fortable. I like th at kind of thing. Nobody thinks of it in words and nobody bothers to work it out literally, but everybody reacts to it. It s very subtle. It s som ething very casual, which I think is im portan t to art and to what I do. It s n o t laboured. Also, at one p o in t I asked myself w hat I w anted art to be. I th o u g h t that dressing was fairly n ear the m ark in that it has an inten tio n and there is som ething im portant at stake. But it s free-flowing, it has nuances that make you think, Yes, those shoes are great today, and they are great that day b u t n o t the next. In a way, art is sm aller than life because it takes so long to actually get it done and m eanw hile life is going on continuously. A nd som e days it s difficult enough putting on a pair of jeans in the m orning. JA: Most of the time, text or titles and images in your work are in terrelated and together p o in t to a social and sexual content. Does language direct your work as a strategy or does the image com e first? SL: Usually I d o n t work from a title and if I do, the title has always changed by the tim e I m finished. But I do have a lot of phrases floating around in my head that are p art of what I m after. But the obje c t d o esn t simply illustrate an idea or phrase; that would m ake it redundant. It has its own potential. T he two ju st help each other. I tend to overuse words and phrases th at I like a lot. Take slang, for exam ple. You use the same words over and over again, your vocabulary d o esn t get any bigger. I ve always enjoyed people talking th at way and swearing. Like som eone saying fuck ten times in the space of three sentences and each tim e it m eans som ething slightly different. JA: This relates to a series of drawings w hich are lists of words, each referring to one action or object. Does it have a title? SL: No. Well, yes. T h at is the title the whole thing. JA: Is that com parable to your treatm ent and use of form s and objects too? I m ean, th at you apply them to represent a specific notion? SL: It s certainly com parable at some level. Things are handy. I m ight have an idea knocking around and I only have to see som ething else and suddenly I ve got a bit m ore of the idea than I ve had for a couple of years. It m ight be a case o f getting a table: to an extent you take w hat you can find. You m ight S A R A H L U C A S, L A I D I N J A P A N, , p h o to c o p ie s, p a p e r c u t t i n g s, c o lla g e, 8 8 x 5 6 l/2 x 2 / C o lla g e m it Z e i t u n g s a u s s c h n i t t e n u n d P h o to k o p ie n, 2 2 3, 5 x 1 4 3,5 x 5 cm. look around everywhere, but you d o n t have a lifetim e to look for a perfect table. You have to accept som ething about it. JA: In WHERE DOES IT ALL END? there is a notion of m aking work w hich is visually very direct and expressed very strongly. How im p o rtant is that? SL: I grew up around people who h ad no particu lar interest in m odern art. E ither they th o u g h t it was a con or som ehow beyond their understanding. It is im portant to me th at people can get into it on some level, even if they d o n t. But I also th in k my w ork is com plex. People d o n t always think so. They get it on a certain level and d o n t look any further. You can t always win. Having said that, som etim es I think it looks pretty crude myself, so I can understand others having th at reaction. JA: Your invitation to a recen t exhibition shows Sarah Lucas sitting on a heap of old fu rniture out on the street som ew here in east L ondon... SL: It s w here I live, and it s also w here I grew up. JA: Did you choose the im age to suggest th at you feed on a sense o f social difference and lower class culture? SL: I chose it partly because I always think it s funny to see indoor fu rn itu re out on the street. But I am a local and th at s a bonus for me. I enjoy the vernacular. But it s a bit of a red h errin g because m ost of the locals a re n t really interested in art. So it s like doing the splits with no one watching. Amsterdam, May