Sarah Lucas: NAKED EYE at Kiasma

The Sarah Lucas exhibition on display on the top floor of Kiasma has received good reviews. She is an acclaimed artist who depicts gender and gender-related systems. Lucas was born in London in 1962 and lives in Suffolk. The works in the exhibition are a collection spanning from the 1990s to the present day: sculptures, photographs, and installations

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The exhibition policy of museums has been criticised in some recent public discussions, claiming that (Finnish) museums do not genuinely take a stand on current events or the environment. Appropriate exhibition topics for museums would be environmental issues and gender. Such topics are those that everyone in the cultural bubble agrees upon. If this is the case, then this Lucas exhibition, which is quite outspoken in itself, would be a so-called acceptable statement. The exhibition focusing on race, currently on display at the Museum of Photography, might be a slightly more radical discussion opener.

Untitled, 1993, gouache and collage on card. Sarah Lucas. Private collection

Key themes for Lucas are the meanings and assumptions of the body and sexuality. She often uses everyday objects – such as furniture, fruit, stockings, or lamps.

Bunny, 1997, stockings, suspender belt, plywood chair, clamp, kapok, metal wire. Private collection

Honey Bunny. Stockings, wire, wool, spring clamp, shoes, acrylic, chair. Sarah Lucas. Courtesy Sadie Coles HQ, London

In the foreground is the work Good Thoughts - Bad Thoughts, 2023, stockings, metal wire, wool, boots, boxing gloves, acrylic paint, chair, rubbish bin. Sarah Lucas. Courtesy Sadie Coles HQ, London

In my experience as a visitor, the fifth floor of Kiasma is a rather difficult space for exhibitions. The architecture of the space itself is so strong that it diminishes the effectiveness of the works. I feel this is true for this exhibition as well. However, on the balcony facing Mannerheimintie, the space and the works become one.

The exhibition texts mention that Lucas's works contain humour that is double-edged, but which also deals with power. The humour is generally subtle. However, it is not always particularly subtle, as can be observed in the exhibition space on the Parliament House side.

Bunny Kani, 2022, bronze, concrete, mild steel. Sarah Lucas. Courtesy Sadie Coles HQ, London

Sarah Lucas herself has described the enlivening significance of humor: "When humour happens, things get good. Less depressing. It's a kind of magic. Suddenly things make sense. Contradictory things. Hard to reconcile things." (National Gallery of Australia, discussion 'Sarah Lucas: When humour happens, things get good' with Emma Dexter and others).

And does Lucas tell about her own life in her works? Yes, at least on some level: "I didn't set out to be autobiographical really. In fact I saw, and see, art as a way of having an objective look at something. Though now that I have a lot of works behind me, I can see that they inevitably tell a story, in their way. And of course they are much more personal than I perhaps thought they were at the time of making." (Phaidon, interview 'Sarah Lucas on Her Art, the Venice Biennale').

Lucas captures the differences in the body language of the sexes rarely well. I don't know if young women were taught, or are taught, to sit demurely with their legs together in England; this has happened in Finland at least sometimes. Lucas's bunnies or women certainly do not sit demurely, but sprawl out masculinely with their legs spread.

A counterpart to the Lucas exhibition could be the image campaign based on Kremlin pictures, promoting Vladimir Putin as a masculine man. In these, Putin dives, hunts, and fishes. And it may not just be staged pictures; when looking at Putin in state visit photos, he sits firmly in the ornate Kremlin chairs with his legs spread, the epitome of a macho man.

The "Got a Salmon On" picture has been described (Guardian 27.1.2019) as a work that plays with the clichés of masculine capability. A thick fish is lifted onto the shoulder like a rifle. The artist stands outside, in front of a barred men's toilet, in her oversized, two-button pinstripe jacket and shiny boots.

Kiasma. Sarah Lucas: Naked Eye, until 8.3.2026

Photos from the exhibition 15.10.2025, OI. Putin photo from the Reuters collection 35Photos. Putin's art of the photo, 2021

Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma | Finnish National Gallery, webpage