The prospect of revisiting old rebel artists can induce a particular species of dread in the gallery-goer—the sneaking suspicion that yesterday’s rebelliousness is now preserved in institutional amber, all provocation drained of its sting. Or maybe that’s just me.
Walking through the twin spaces of Sadie Coles HQ and Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert on Bury Street - for this is a show spread across two galleries - one braces oneself for precisely this letdown. It's a relief, then, to discover that both Sarah Lucas and Maggi Hambling—working now in their seventh and ninth decades respectively—have produced work that bristles with an almost mischievous vitality.
