The curator’s craft · 02
Massimiliano Gioni and Sarah Lucas: the body according to Au Naturel
More than 150 works across three floors: how Massimiliano Gioni and Margot Norton turned a survey into an argument about gender, desire and power.
A survey is more than an illustrated timeline
In 2018 the New Museum presented Au Naturel, Sarah Lucas’s first major US survey. Massimiliano Gioni and Margot Norton assembled more than 150 works from the late 1980s to new commissions across three main floors.
Photography, furniture, cigarettes, stuffed tights and monumental sculpture form a grammar of the body in which humour and aggression dismantle stereotypes about gender and sexuality.
Installation builds an argument
Self-portraits placed beside the Bunnies and NUDS reveal continuities no single image can explain. Curating becomes montage: rhythm, proximity and distance make the move from domestic object to imagined body legible.
The title reverses the tradition of the nude. What appears natural is shown to be constructed by language, power and convention, while the works carry the argument.
Reading a show before buying
A survey identifies central bodies of work without making every object equivalent. Before buying, check series, year, format, edition and exhibition history.
The catalogue, including Gioni’s interview with Lucas, extends the exhibition as research. It verifies titles, materials and genealogies; it is not an automatic certificate of value.
Sources and further reading
Sources allow readers to verify and explore. Official artist links are part of the feature, not an appendix.
ADVAcquistare Arte recommends: Resin-sealed books, words and layered images turn melancholy into a material narrative.
Painting · memory · collage
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