Horsing Around
Sarah Lucas’ surreal statue is strangely at home in Central Park
Seong Kwon / Courtesy courtesy Public Art Fund; Murderme, London; Sarah Lucas; Sadie Coles HQ, London; and Gladstone Gallery, New York
The Shire horse hauling two oversized squash at the entrance to Central Park on 60th Street and 5th Avenue may bewilder some passersby, especially those looking to pay $35 dollars for a holiday horse and carriage ride. Unless, that is, they’ve come to view the Public Art Fund's display of Sarah Lucas’ statue Perceval, on view until May 1.
Lucas is known for art that challenges commonly held assumptions, like her compatriots in the Young British Artists. Her painted bronze, steel, and concrete statue is a life-size replica of a common UK knickknack, and the quintessentially British Shire horse blithely contradicts the New York City landscape. Public Art Fund director Rochelle Steiner called the installation a bit of “a foreign intrusion,” yet noted that with scores of horses and buggies in the background and young children traversing its back, Perceval somehow fits.
Audrey Jaynes