Sarah Lucas and Smoking in British Art

by Natasha Long

Sarah Lucas, Red Sky Cah, 2018. Tate. 

From September 2023 – January 2024, Tate Britain in London showcased the work of the contemporary artist Sarah Lucas in an exhibition entitled ‘Happy Gas’. Lucas is a prolific artist who first became known for her role in the Young British Artists (YBA) movement in London in the 1980s and 1990s, consisting of a group of artists who produced artworks which shocked audiences and pushed the limits of art. In her artistic practice, Lucas uses found industrial, domestic and miscellaneous objects which challenge sex, class and gender in often a bold and humorous manner. At Tate Britian, the final room of the exhibition featured a car wreck installation entitled ‘This Jaguar’s Going to Heaven’ (2018). Upon close inspection, the viewer can decipher that the vehicle is coated in cigarettes, so meticulously set in a pattern they are almost unnoticeable. The car is destroyed and cut in half, placed centrally in the room contained by Lucas’ ‘Red Sky’ portrait series which covers the surrounding walls, in which Lucas looks melancholic, engulfed by circulating smoke in the photographs. The room as a whole is “more apocalyptic” for the artistic, as a reflection of contemporary politics. This apocalyptic atmosphere is reinforced by Lucas’ use of the cigarette which she deems as representative of destruction, “when I first started using cigarettes in art it was because I was wondering why people are self-destructive. But its often destructive things that make us feel most alive”. Therefore, the cigarette for Lucas, which has been incorporated in her art since 1997, is utilised to understand human nature and behaviour. 

Sarah Lucas, This Jaguar’s Going to Heaven, 2018. Installation view. Studio International, October 4, 2023. Photo: Tate, Lucy Green. 

Smoking is a frequently used motif and representation within art, especially within British art where it has been used as a symbol of gender, class and mortality and most predominantly as a reflection of the smoking as a social habit. Walter Sickert’s Ennui from 1914 features a couple in a state of ennui, indicated by the title, the woman gazes away from the viewer and the man, who reclines in an armchair, is laid back having a smoke. The everyday domestic scene has implied suffocation, the stuffed birds within a  bell jar and the muted colour palette reinforce the dreary atmosphere. The act of smoking is depicted as an everyday pastime in the state of boredom. It is also a social and domestic habit, especially in the age of the painting’s production.  

Walter Richard Sickert, Ennui, c.1914. oil on canvas. Tate. 

Moreover, the collaborative art duo Gilbert and Geroge created a series of 114 photographs entitled ‘Balls: The Evening Before The Morning After – Drinking Sculpture’ from 1972. The photographs were taken in their local drinking hub in Bethnal Green, London, capturing moments of partying and entertainment which feature smoking as a crucial component of drinking culture. The images are blurred to imply a drunken state, where smoking is a leisurely act. Smoking here represents typical human activity, the work overall as an example of the duo’s ‘living sculptures’ where art merges with life.

Gilbert & George, Balls: The Evening Before The Morning After – Drinking sculpture, 1972. gelatin silver prints on paper. Tate. 

The cigarette has thus been used to represent an everyday and common pastime. Significantly, therefore, its incorporation within a sculptural portrait of Queen Elizabeth II is an unexpected combination of imagery for a viewer. Sean Read’s ‘Happy and Glorious’ from 1997 is an irreverent and satirical sculpture depicting the Queen with her robe, slippers and crown and curiously holding milk and the newspaper ‘Sporting Life’ with a cigarette in her mouth. According to Jon Sleigh, the work “combines the trappings of royalty with a visual of working-class domesticity”; the work challenges British class structures. The juxtaposing imagery generates an unfamiliar image, where the cigarette is implied as being far from an emblem of royalty.

Sean Read, Happy and Glorious, 1997, mixed media, 175.9 x 71.7 x 46cm. Art UK. 

Returning to Sarah Lucas’ practice, the cigarette moves beyond a visual representation and is utilised as a physical material for her art. The cigarette is a cheap and available material for the artist, who sees her use of the material as “obsessive”. For Lucas the object is also relevant and holds metaphorical significance reflecting concepts of time and the human body, she sees the cigarette as reminiscent of sperm or genes. The installation ‘This Jaguar’s Going to Heaven’, where cigarettes cover the car, references humanity’s ability to self-destruct. These man-made materials, constructed in a space which is apocalyptic and morbid, presents the simple cigarette object as a memento mori. For Lucas, the destructive nature of the cigarette is not a statement of disapproval, but a reminder that destructive human acts instil us with the feeling of being alive. In the contemporary climate, with our knowledge of the health implications of smoking, for Lucas it shows the thrill of danger, the everyday pastimes we indulge ourselves with, and man-made damage. The small material conjures these reminders for a viewer and offers the possibility to reflect on humanity. It has been used across British art to challenge and represent culture, class and society. The cigarette is activated by the human hand and lungs and is almost inexplicable without its relationship to the human body. In art, the cigarette has been a continually apt symbol to comment and reflect upon human relationships with others and ourselves.  

Bibliography  

Exhibition Guide. “Sarah Lucas: Happy Gas”. Tate. https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/sarah-lucas/exhibition-guide  

Adrian Lobb, “Artist Sarah Lucas on tits, making something out of nothing and ‘living in quite terrible times’”. The Big Issue. September 29, 2023. https://www.bigissue.com/culture/art/sarah-lucas-happy-gas-tate-britain-interview/  

Jonathan Jones, “Its about Knowing You’ll Die”, May 14, 2007. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2007/may/14/art  

“Gilbert and George. Balls: The evening Before the Morning After – Drinking Sculpture, 1972”. Tate.https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/gilbert-george-balls-the-evening-before-the-morning-after-drinking-sculpture-t01701  

Jon Sleigh. “Got a light? Smoking in Art”. June 2, 2021. Art UK. https://artuk.org/discover/stories/got-a-light-smoking-in-art  

“Cigarette Tits [Idealised Smokers Chest II, Sarah Lucas, 1999”, Tate. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/lucas-cigarette-tits-idealized-smokers-chest-ii-t13928