Talking Tit

2.06.19  |  Article by Olu Odukoya  |  Art, interview, Magazine  |  MM11 Click to buy

Documented While Making New Work for This Issue’s Special Supplement, Sarah Lucas Talks Tits, Why God Is Dad, and Furniture Being Her Family.

OO:

I loved how the Liberty text came out in the pictures

SL:

Good, I’m glad it’s worked out.

“it’s always relevant, ‘liberty’, isn’t it? There’s never enough of it about.”

OO:

But why ‘liberty’ in the first place? You came up with the idea of using that word…

SL:

I can’t remember! It was such a while ago that I made the sculpture, but I’d assume it was the same reason as using it now: that it’s always relevant, ‘liberty’, isn’t it? There’s never enough of it about.

OO:

Definitely. The sculptures you made of the tits — you’ve done those quite often before? You mentioned doing them for a charity project?

SL:

Oh yeah, I can send you a picture of that on my phone, actually; that was just the other day. I’ve done the tit pieces a lot. You remember when we did that talk together at Situation [at Sadie Coles Gallery], and I had that chair…?

OO:
I do! There were a lot of tits on that chair.

SL:

With the concrete boots, and the big sort of caged wire construction all smothered in tits. I can’t remember how long I’ve been doing them now — maybe since about 2001, or something. But they’re so convenient that I use them a lot.

OO:

And they’re so recognisable! Because I took the one you gave me home, and my daughter recognised it straight away; she said: “whoah, you’ve got titties!” And she’s only six.

SL:

They’re quite amazing to walk around in the street with, because it draws everybody’s eye, and they have to do a double-take as to whether it’s a real tit or not. Because it operates on people as if it is a real tit. It would be quite funny to go to a nursery with them or something, or somewhere with loads of babies — just to see what they make of it. I bet they’d respond to it, too.

OO:

What about the concrete shoes that are in the pictures — when was that piece made? And what’s it called?

SL:

I can’t remember what I’ve called it at different times, if only because I’ve made a few pairs. It’s going back some years that I made the first pair of shoes, I think; and then later on I got into making those big concrete boots, the thigh-high boots. But the shoes came first. I’ve got such a terrible memory…

OO:

Do you remember why you first made them?

SL:

Actually, years ago, I started out on it because I was casting my own shoes. This is was in the 90s, with some of the stuff I used to wear — creepers, and weird boots, and things like that. After I’d really worn them out, and they were beyond wearing any more, I’d cast them in concrete; so it started out with my own things. Then later on it morphed into using those big platforms, and then the thigh-high boots and stuff.