Power In Woman featured three of British artist Sarah Lucas’ ten Muses, originally shown as part of the acclaimed commission I SCREAM DADDIO by the British Council for the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2015.
Each sculpture presents the female body as literally ‘topless’, in a range of poses from the coy to the confrontational. In form and material, Lucas’ sculptures mirror classical plaster casts. A symbol of daily life (and of death) is implied by the cigarettes which have been implanted in each figure, slyly puncturing their elegance.
By placing the figures on items of furniture, Lucas returns to the use of everyday objects that has defined her career; the use of the ‘readymade’ to conjure up sexual puns and corporeal fragments. The traditional plinth s replaced by the stuff of reality – in a juxtaposition of classical form and furniture.
