14 October – 15 November 2008: Penetralia
69 South Audley Street London W1
In this exhibition of new sculpture, her first in London since Perceval at the Serpentine Gallery in 2006, British artist Sarah Lucas exhibits a series of objects assembled from plaster casts of penises and flint. The variations on this formal starting point are like the haul of an archeological dig in the manner of a collection of Cycladic torsos or polytheistic relics, the repetition underlining its potency and timelessness, and the dynamism of the phallus as metaphor. The Penetralia sculptures sit comfortably in the context of Sarah Lucas’ body of work, its principal position a challenge to ideas of gender stereotypes and sexual allegory. These new sculptures can be seen as the dogged examination of the phallic form itself, set out for consideration of shape and loaded subject.