British sculptor Sarah Lucas has been named the first winner of the New Museum’s newly launched Hostetler/Wrigley Sculpture Prize. The $400,000 prize is named after Sue Hostetler, trustee of the New York institution of contemporary art, and will be awarded to a total of five female sculptors over the course of a decade. The money supports a new commission from each artist for the museum and covers associated costs related to production, installation and exhibition; fees for the artist are included in the amount. Lucas said his work would be called Venus Victoria. It will be on display in the Museum Square on the Bowery once the institution’s planned expansion works are complete: Scheduled to be completed in 2022, the project has encountered delays related to the Covid-19 crisis and its start date. completion is unknown.
The jury for the prize was made up of artists Teresita Fernández, Joan Jonas, Julie Mehretu, Cindy Sherman and Kiki Smith. “We selected Sarah Lucas’ proposal for its exuberance, vitality and irreverence,” the jurors said in a joint statement. “Colourful, humorous and radically joyful, Lucas’ proposal imagines an unconventional monument – a ‘non-monumental’ monument – celebrating women claiming a place in public life. The title Venus Victoria is just a perfect omen.
Lucas rose to prominence in the early 1990s as part of the cohort known as the Young British Artists, or YBAs. She is known for her sculptures embodying provocative or debauched visual puns and often incorporating everyday materials like fruit and furniture. A work from 1994, Natural, for example, featured a mattress, a bucket, a pair of melons, oranges, and a cucumber arranged to suggest naked male and female bodies. In 2018, the New Museum organized a major exhibition of his work, “Natural”. An inquiry into Lucas’ work will open at Tate Britain in London on September 28.
