About
Sarah Lucas won over a jury of Cindy Sherman, Julie Mehretu and Kiki Smith and her sculpture now anchors the free New Museum plaza.
Lucas got this commission from an all-artist jury of Teresita Fernandez, Joan Jonas, Julie Mehretu, Cindy Sherman and Kiki Smith, which is about as loaded a room of judges as contemporary sculpture can assemble. Her work has always run on irreverence and readymades, furniture and tights and cigarettes reassembled into bodies, and here it is planted on a public plaza where nobody has to buy a ticket to argue with it. It stands for two years, and you can see it any hour from the Bowery sidewalk.
What to expect
An outdoor sculpture on the new plaza at Bowery and Prince Street, visible from the sidewalk without entering the museum. The plaza is part of the OMA expansion, so the surrounding architecture is itself new and worth a look.
Good to know
- Completely free and visible from the street, with no museum ticket required
- The 6 to Spring Street or the F to Second Avenue are the closest stops
- Sidewalk traffic on the Bowery is heavy, so step into the plaza for a clean sightline
- It is outdoors and unlit-dependent, so daylight visits photograph best
- The New Museum facade sculpture is a few steps away and also free to see
- The plaza commission rotates on a long cycle, so this is a multi-year installation
Common questions
Do I need a museum ticket to see it?
No. VENUS VICTORIA sits on the New Museum's public plaza and is free to view from the street.
Who selected Sarah Lucas for the commission?
An all-artist jury of Teresita Fernandez, Joan Jonas, Julie Mehretu, Cindy Sherman and Kiki Smith.
How long will it stay up?
It is installed for two years as the inaugural plaza commission, the first of five planned over ten years.