Sarah Lucas in Lacan, The Exhibition: When Art Meets Psychoanalysis

While homages and exhibitions have already been dedicated to these intellectual figures, the thought of Jacques Lacan (1901-1981) has not been dealt with in museums to date, even though he was strongly attached to works of art, to the point of buying gustave courbet’s famous painting, L’origine du monde.

Jacques Lacan was closely involved with 20th-century art and artists (Salvador Dalí, André Masson, Georges Bataille, Pablo Picasso or Dora Maar), and in his teaching never ceased to draw on the art of all times. His discourse on art has been as fresh as it has been unusual, holding back, intriguing and provoking many contemporary artists. He has interpreted artworks not just as powers that give us something to see, but as dazzling objects that look back at the viewer. In devoting an exhibition to Jacques Lacan, we wanted to surround his fascinating figure with a multitude of such gazes.

All this is far removed from a psychoanalytical interpretation of artists. The psychoanalyst is quite the opposite of a master: he or she is a student of art, docile to art's original truths, and aiming to decipher the previously unsuspected knowledge it contains. That is why this exhibition is not only a homage to psychoanalysis: it also celebrates what remains behind, after all elucidation, of the mystery of art. Lacan, at the end of his life, saw things no differently.