Sarah Lucas - 706

m
In the centre of a battered armchair, discoloured with black soot from a fire, sits a closed-face crash helmet formed from cigarettes. The floral pattern of the armchair cover is only visible in a few small areas beneath the soot, while the wooden armrests and legs are completely burnt in parts or coloured black. Cigarette packets from the brand Marlboro Gold support the rear left leg of the chair, half of which has been burnt away. On the floor under the armchair the large steel springs of the seat lie in a tangled mess. 

f
Sarah Lucas uses found everyday materials, which she processes and recombines, for her works, as she does in this piece. Here the wingback chair, which stands for comfort within one’s own four walls, is used as a shelf for protective clothing in the form of a crash helmet. The living room armchair is burnt out, while the crash helmet has been reconstructed from cigarettes hazardous to health. Of all things it is a stack of cigarette packets that serves the chair as a prosthesis, in order to keep it steady and in balance. 

m
Is Suicide Genetic? asks the title of the work created in 1996. The artist describes the 1990s as a time when her circle of friends indulged in parties and celebrations with alcohol and drugs. She relates how one morning, on her way home, she thought about it carefully:

f (quote)
“If this is all there is, this world here. If this is it, given infinite possibility, why is it so shabby? And similarly, if we are so keen to be alive, to survive, why the self-destructive behaviour? Why the smoking, drinking, drugging?”