Great Britain

Sarah Lucas‘s exhibition will be the twentieth solo presentation commissioned by the British Council to represent Britain at the 56th International Art Exhibition in Venice.
Over the course of two decades, Lucas has become recognised as one of Britain’s most significant contemporary artists. Spanning sculpture, photography and installation, her work has consistently been characterised by irreverent humour and the use of everyday ‘readymade’ objects – furniture, food, tabloid newspapers, tights, toilets, cigarettes – to conjure up sexual puns and corporeal fragments. By turns brutal and elegiac, lewd and lyrical, Lucas’s art has continued to confront such ‘big themes’ as sex, death and abjection.

Emma Dexter, Director, Visual Arts at the British Council: “In my first year as Director of Visual Arts at the British Council I am delighted to be working with one of the UK’s most formidable artistic talents. Sarah Lucas’s work is exciting and daring and the Venice Biennale is the best possible platform to showcase this to an international audience. The visual arts are one of the UK’s greatest strengths and it is a great privilege to be Commissioner of the British Pavilion presentation for the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015.”

Sarah Lucas (b. 1962, London) studied at the Working Men’s College, London College of Printing, and Goldsmith’s College.
Lucas’ s work has been presented in solo exhibitions around the world. Her latest exhibitions include a survey at Tramway, Glasgow (2014), ‘NOB + Gelatin’, Secession, Vienna (2013-14), and ‘SITUATION Absolute Beach Man Rubble’, Whitechapel Gallery, London (2013).
A retrospective took place in 2005 at Kunsthalle Zürich, Kunstverein Hamburg and Tate Liverpool.
Recent international residencies and exhibitions include LUCAS BOSCH GELATIN, Kunsthalle Krems, Austria and NUZ: Spirit of Ewe, Two Rooms, Auckland, New Zealand (both 2011); Museo Diego Rivera Anahuacalli, Mexico City (2012).
Sarah Lucas is represented by Sadie Coles HQ, London; Gladstone Gallery, New York; Kurimanzutto, Mexico City and CFA, Berlin.