Sarah  Lucas

Repetition, exaggeration and processes of making are common threads that tie the works together in *Face Up*. The exhibition brings together particular works exemplary of each artist’s working process and practices. Each of the works are exaggerated caricatures of recognizable gestures, left open and ambiguous to override static meaning.

Done in repetition and in different materials, these works come together as representations of somewhat grotesque gestures. Lee Lozano’s serial pulling out of nose hairs is strange, funny, crude and beautiful, but the three works also register with a certain sting. Lozano captures something base and obsessive in this repeated face poking. Bruce Nauman’s approach is more comical. He is making faces, distorting himself into expressions that don’t transmit decipherable emotions. Growing out of performance works, Nauman’s suite of prints use the idea of performing arbitrary activities as a material to manipulate in an effort to make a connection to the viewer while understanding that it may mean nothing at all to his audience. Nauman’s prints in conversation with the Lozano works on paper and canvas, begin an absurd conversation that is taken further by Sarah Lucas’ sculpture, which comes from a series of works meticulously crafted from unsmoked cigarettes. Vulgar, blunt and self-conscious, this piece adds a tension to the exhibition that is unapologetic for its compulsiveness and crude representation of the female form. With an economy of means, Lucas has captured the full slump of a heavily bosomed woman, who seems resigned to her position in the centre of the room.

*Face Up* is co-curated by Jenifer Papararo and artist Elizabeth Zvonar. The work of these three artists is combined to articulate Zvonar’s interest in representations of the body, specifically how the body or images of the body can be broken down into single gestures


Interview: Jenifer Papararo and Elizabeth Zvonar

A black and white photocopy of the bottom half of a person’s face. This person puts index fingers in their mouth and pulls lips widely to both sides, showing their teeth. 

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Five close up images of a mouth and hands hang on the wall of a gallery. A chair sits off to the side with a bra attached to the back support. The bra is holding two round objects. 

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Three framed illustrations hang on two gallery walls. A chair sits on its own in the middle of the room with a bra attached to the back support. The bra is holding two round objects. 

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Detail shot displaying a chair with a black bra clasped on the back support of the chair. Two balls are held inside the bra. Both balls are covered by white and orange rolled paper resembling cigarettes.

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A wooden chair is installed on the grey floor. A black bra is clasped on the back support of this chair and holding two large balls, which are covered by rolled white and orange paper. 

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Lee Lozano, Sarah Lucas, Bruce Nauman

Face Up

*PORTRAIT* is the third and final in a series of three publications that uses the petit genres of landscape, still life and portraiture to reflect programming at the Contemporary Art Gallery which framed tendencies in contemporary art.


Published by the Contemporary Art Gallery in 2010, this catalogue includes texts by curator Glenn Alteen, film theorist Lisa Coulthard, art historian Gill Perry and cultural theorist Helma Sawatzky as well as a text by CAG curator Jenifer Papararo and an interview with artist Elizabeth Zvonar. The publication includes the CAG exhibitions, *Playing Homage*, Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun: *Neo-Native Drawings and Other Works*, Elizabeth Zvonar: *On Time* and *Face Up*.

#### Other publications from this series:

*LANDSCAPE*

*STILL LIFE*

Purchase all three publications for $25 below.

Sarah Lucas

Exhibitions

Publications & Editions