Sarah Lucas: Au Naturel (1994) Essay

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The surprise of the work derives not simply from the fact that a mattress from a motel or apartment is displayed in a museum: there is also evidence of Lucas' artistic hand at work. The mattress is covered with ordinary objects that depict a series of sexual jokes, including a pair of melons evidently designed to represent breasts, a bucket that is supposed to represent a vagina, and a cucumber and a pair of oranges intended to represent a penis. These ordinary objects are unlikely to be found on a 'real' mattress. Because they are evidently placed upon the mattress, they hint at what may be the larger purpose of Lucas' work, namely to suggest that there is no 'natural' sexuality at all. Humans impose sexual ideas upon objects, whether it is the idea of cheap sex on a dirty mattress, or upon physical objects such as fruit.

Reactions to the exhibition were not entirely positive.

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Perhaps unsurprisingly, casual observers responded with the typical 'I could have done that' sentiment often conveyed when confronted with postmodern installation art. Wrote one critic: "It made me wonder if anyone had actually paid hard cash for this. The melons and other vegetables were real and I could smell them starting to go bad. I guess then they will be replaced.

" But the rancid smell, the realness of the mattress, are all part of Lucas' point: even in the case of these very real and concrete objects, there is an artifice; there is an artifice to all of our constructions of sexuality, not just the carefully arranged oranges and cucumber. Because we are part of a particular culture we judge people who have sex on dirty mattresses, just like we 'see' a penis in a cucumber, when really these things are just objects and acts, no more and no less.

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