exploring my biases through contemporary art
Nice Tits by Sarah Lucas seen in the Palazzo Strozzi
While studying abroad in Florence, I was thrilled to dive into my contemporary art class as It’s a subject I've always quietly loved. For our final project, we were tasked with exploring the Palazzo Strozzi to find an artist whose work we would research and present on.
When I visited the Palazzo, I encountered a piece by Sarah Lucas titled ‘Nice Tits’. I remember feeling taken aback by it and turning to my professor to discuss how objectifying it felt. Afterward, I went home and thought deeply about Lucas’s work. Although I didn’t like ‘Nice Tits’, I couldn’t shake my intrigue about what she was expressing as a woman through this art. I wanted to understand her perspective more fully.
Self Portrait by Sarah Lucas
I decided my final presentation was going to be about Sarah so I jumped head-first into a deep dive. I learned about Sarah’s background. She’s a British-born woman who was a prominent member of the Young British Artists that emerged in 1988 to revamp British art. Through my process, I also explored her over 30 years of sculptural creations that are often made of ordinary objects that resemble female body parts and are known to be dark, controversial, and comedic. Lucas’s ironic approach to life is especially interesting as she creates hypersexualized works while rejecting traditional femininity in her appearance, embracing a masculine aesthetic.
Power in Woman by Sarah Lucas
More profoundly during this deep dive, I found a quote of Sarah referencing the female bodies in her work saying, “he or she is just being. You, or me, or somebody else is doing the rest.” This quote clicked in my brain and it gave me a whole new way to contextualize her work. It made me realize that the unsettling feelings her work evoked in me were not entirely about the sculpture itself but about the societal lens I brought to it. Being a woman in society there is a lingering feeling of objectivity from men in the way they wink, make comments, and in general, prioritize women's appearances over their humanity.
This reflection and my knowledge of Sarah allowed me to explore the bias that I brought to the Palazzo Strozzi that day when I encountered ‘Nice Tits’. It was a humbling moment of self-awareness for me as my biases had colored my experience of the artwork. Sarah approaches her work with a level of humor and unseriousness that I previously was not able to understand. Once I let go of those biases, I could see her work not as a reinforcement of objectification but as a mirror of the way society views women’s bodies. Our perception of art, especially contemporary art where the meaning can be highly subjective gives way to countless interpretations that are shaped by societal expectations. So with all of that being said, I challenge you to reflect on your biases and see how your perspective shifts when you approach contemporary art with openness and a little humor.
