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The New Museum today unveiled a new sculpture by Sarah Lucas (b. 1962, London, UK) as the first commission produced for the Museum’s outdoor plaza at the terminus of Bowery and Prince Street—a new public space created through the New Museum’s OMA-designed building expansion. Lucas was selected as the first artist to create work for the plaza by an all-artist jury comprised of Teresita Fernández, Joan Jonas, Julie Mehretu, Cindy Sherman, and Kiki Smith. She is the first of five recipients over ten years to be selected by a rotating jury of women artists for this commission series which supports the production and presentation of public sculpture by women. Her commission entitled VENUS VICTORIA opens today, May 12, 2026, and will be on view for two years.
Recognized as one of Britain’s most significant contemporary artists, Lucas has cultivated an expansive practice spanning sculpture, photography, and installation characterized by irreverent humor and the use of everyday, readymade objects—furniture, food, tabloid newspapers, tights, toilets, cigarettes—to conjure up corporeal fragments. The body, in its many guises, is her prevailing subject. Lucas developed VENUS VICTORIA from her Bunny series (1997–present) of biomorphic sculptures evoking reclining female nudes clamped to chairs or other domestic objects. Lampooning traditional—and typically male—monumental public statues of historic figures, VENUS VICTORIA mischievously sits atop a giant washing machine, presiding over the Bowery’s cacophony of traffic, pedestrians, and appliance stores.
Sarah Lucas’ selection as the first artist to create work for the public plaza follows her New Museum solo exhibition Au Naturel (2018), which travelled to the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2019). She has exhibited internationally since coming to prominence in the 1990s with solo shows Penis Nailed to a Board, City Racing, London (1992) and The Whole Joke, Kingly Street, London (1992), followed by presentations at MoMA, New York (1993); Museum Boymans van Beunigen, Rotterdam (1996); Freud Museum, London (2000); and In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (with Angus Fairhurst and Damien Hirst) at Tate Britain, London (2004). In 2005, a touring retrospective took place at Kunsthalle Zürich, Kunstverein Hamburg, and Tate Liverpool. In addition to Au Naturel at the New Museum, Lucas’ major solo exhibitions have included Sarah Lucas: Happy Gas, Tate Britain (2023); Project 1: Sarah Lucas, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (2021); Red Brick Art Museum, Beijing (2019); Sarah Lucas: Good Muse, Legion of Honor, San Francisco (2017); POWER IN WOMAN, Sir John Soane’s Museum, London (2016), travelling to Humber Street Gallery, Hull (2017); and I SCREAM DADDIO, British Pavilion, 56th Venice International Art Biennale, Venice (2015).
Sarah Lucas: VENUS VICTORIA is curated by Massimiliano Gioni, Edlis Neeson Artistic Director, and Madeline Weisburg, Senior Assistant Curator.
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