Sarah Lucas Furniture / 7

From 8th to 12th April 2014, Sadie Coles HQ presents 14 limited edition, numbered, stamped and signed new furniture designs by the British artist Sarah Lucas, on display at the Salone Internazionale del Mobile di Milan.

These limited editions mark a dramatic new development in Lucas’s practice. Materials that previously acted as plinths and platforms for her artworks have been reconfigured into stand-alone pieces including tables, chairs, benches, a desk, and a freestanding partition wall.

Produced in collaboration with specialist fabricators the London Art Workshop, Sarah Lucas Furniture (2013) comprises mass-produced, basic construction materials – concrete breeze blocks and MDF – that have pervaded Lucas’ art for several years. For each of the pieces, identically sized and exactingly arranged breeze blocks have been embedded into hard edged, minimalist MDF frameworks, creating a brutalist kind of inlay or ‘intarsia’, the antique practice of setting wood or stone within a surface. Lucas describes the concrete and MDF materials as “surprisingly stylish”, pinpointing their appeal through their “texture, colour – both of which seem very 'real'”.

In Lucas’ furniture, concrete fulfils both a functional and aesthetic role, serving as durable readymade building blocks while investing the furniture with a uniform utilitarian appearance. Indeed the grid-like appearance of the breeze blocks in the objects call to mind the modular compositions of Minimalist artists such as Donald Judd and Carl Andre. Certain of the works have been specifically designed by Lucas as gallery furniture – as seats to be placed within a larger exhibition of the artist’s work.

Sarah Lucas Furniture
Designer: Sarah Lucas

8–12 April
Sadie Coles
Via San Gregorio 43 / Via Casati 32
20124 Milan