Sérgio Martins ///

'My own walking ground': Some notes on Renata Lucas' recent work

In the brief period she spent in London, Renata Lucas made two works whose titles alluded to different, seemingly antithetical ways of being in relation to the home. Visitor (2007) was part of a collective show at the Tate Modern, named ‘The World as a Stage;’ it consisted of a patch of wild growth that apparently erupted in the midst of the building’s austere entrance garden. Resident (2007) was the product of, well, an artistic residence at the Gasworks, in South London. The institutional façade of the gallery was replaced by a solid wall of London’s distinctive terracotta bricks, which convoluted itself inwards in order to sequester some of the gallery’s inner area (a heat radiator included) and create an outward, cavern-like pocket of space.

Part of the ambivalence that is to be found in those titles stems from the artist’s own situation. Renata Lucas had recently come from an experience in Los Angeles, where a series of difficulties in overcoming health and safety regulations – her work markedly involves long series of negotiations in many levels: institutional, governmental etc. – rendered her intended project impossible. .