Sarah Lucas and the public sculpture commission at New Museum
Published on 08/27/2026 at 15:43 | Editorial responsibility: Rafael Müller, Editor-in-Chief AD HOC NEWS
Sarah Lucas has anchored a pink, high-heeled reclining figure on a concrete washing machine at the corner of Bowery and Prince Street in New York. The New Museum presents the public sculpture VENUS VICTORIA as an ongoing plaza commission that opened on May 12, 2026, as the museum’s exhibition listing confirms. New Museum exhibition page
The New Museum commission in detail
For the plaza outside its OMA-designed Toby Devan Lewis Building, the New Museum invited Sarah Lucas to create VENUS VICTORIA, a biomorphic sculpture that fuses a reclining nude with a domestic appliance. The work stands on the Bowery plaza as a long-term public commission, with the museum listing the project as an ongoing exhibition from May 12, 2026. HENI report on the plaza work
Descriptions of the piece highlight a pink-toned, ecstatic female figure wearing yellow high heels and straddling a large cast-concrete washing machine. This configuration continues Lucas’s long-standing strategy of merging everyday objects with eroticized bodies to question codes of gender and labor in public space. The Art Newspaper coverage
Museum and collection echoes
The plaza commission coincides with strengthened institutional backing for Sarah Lucas in the museum field. On July 27, 2026, The Hepworth Wakefield announced the acquisition of her 1999 work Nude No. 2 through the Contemporary Art Society’s Special Partnership with the Henry Moore Foundation, supported by Cathy Wills and enabled by the artist. Hepworth Wakefield acquisition notice
The work enters the exhibition Rhythm, Dance and Everything: The Body and Performance from Hepworth to Now, where it remains on display until March 2027 alongside Tau Lewis’s Lilith. The acquisition underscores how Lucas’s exploration of the nude and bodily fragmentation has become a reference point for current reflections on gender and corporeality in British sculpture.
All news and background on Sarah Lucas
Further reporting on Sarah Lucas traces how her public commissions, museum acquisitions and earlier exhibitions interlink across London, Helsinki and New York.
The work core and recurring motifs
Across sculpture, installation and photography, Sarah Lucas has consistently used furniture, cigarettes, hosiery, and cast body parts to test how crude humor can expose entrenched stereotypes. The New Museum’s presentation of VENUS VICTORIA explicitly frames the piece as celebrating women claiming space in public life.
Where the artist stands now
Against this backdrop, Sarah Lucas is currently represented in New York by the plaza sculpture VENUS VICTORIA at the New Museum and in the United Kingdom by institutional holdings ranging from the Hepworth Wakefield’s newly acquired Nude No. 2 to works in collections such as Tate.
Key facts on Sarah Lucas
- Artist: Sarah Lucas
- Medium / Genre: Sculpture and installation with photographic and mixed-media work
- Born: 1962, London, United Kingdom
- Place(s) of practice: Studio practice associated with London and the broader UK scene
- Active since: Late 1980s, with early prominence in the 1990s Young British Artists generation
- Key work groups: Nuds, Bunny sculptures, furniture-based body assemblages, self-portrait photographs
- Current/last exhibition: Rhythm, Dance and Everything: The Body and Performance from Hepworth to Now, The Hepworth Wakefield, with Nude No. 2 (1999) on view until March 2027
- Major collections: Tate (London), The Hepworth Wakefield (Wakefield), Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, other institutional collections documented in museum records
- Awards: Represented Britain at the 2015 Venice Biennale; longstanding recognition through major institutional solo exhibitions
- Next date: New Museum plaza presentation of VENUS VICTORIA continuing as an ongoing public commission
Frequently asked questions about Sarah Lucas
Where can Sarah Lucas’s VENUS VICTORIA be seen?
The sculpture VENUS VICTORIA is installed on the public plaza of the New Museum at the intersection of Bowery and Prince Street in New York, listed by the institution as an ongoing outdoor exhibition that opened on May 12, 2026.
What work by Sarah Lucas did The Hepworth Wakefield recently acquire?
The Hepworth Wakefield announced the acquisition of Sarah Lucas’s Nude No. 2 (1999) on July 27, 2026, bringing a seminal late 1990s nude into its collection through a partnership with the Contemporary Art Society and the Henry Moore Foundation.
How does the New Museum describe Sarah Lucas’s plaza commission?
The New Museum presents Plaza: Sarah Lucas - VENUS VICTORIA as a new sculpture commission on its Bowery plaza, emphasizing its focus on women claiming space in public life and noting that the project forms part of its current exhibitions program.
This article was produced with a.i. support and editorially reviewed. All statements without guarantee; auction results, exhibition dates and awards may change at short notice.
