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Her
name in art is controversy. Tracey Karima Emin RA was born on the 3rd of
July 1963 in Croydon, London. She is an English artist, part of the group known as Britartists or YBAs (Young
British Artists).
It is her ability to paint her emotions, inhibition-free, with great style that makes her a
Kismet Girl. That's what artists do.
MARGATE MAY 2012
Tracey
spoke of her joy on the eve of the opening of a major exhibition in her home town which provided the inspiration for many of her famous artworks.
The controversial artist attended a viewing of the showcase ahead of its public opening
in May 2012 at the £17 million Turner Contemporary in Margate, Kent.
The exhibition featured an eclectic range of drawings, sculptures, tapestries, embroideries, monoprints and neons on themes including love, sex and eroticism.
OTHER
WORK
In 1997 her work 'Everyone' I Have Ever Slept With 1963–1995, a tent appliquéd with names, was shown at Charles Saatchi's Sensation exhibition held at the Royal Academy in London. The same year, she gained considerable media exposure when she appeared drunk and swearing on a live Channel 4 TV discussion.
In 1999 she was a Turner Prize nominee and exhibited My Bed — an installation, consisting of her own unmade dirty bed with used condoms and blood-stained underwear.
In 2004 her tent artwork was destroyed in the Momart warehouse fire. In March 2007 Emin was chosen to join the Royal Academy of Arts in London as a Royal Academician. She represented Britain at the 2007 Venice Biennale. Her first major retrospective 20 Years was held in Edinburgh 2008, and toured Europe until 2009.
In May 2011 Emin's largest major solo exhibition in a public space was held at Hayward Gallery, London titled Love Is What You Want.
In April 2011 Tracey opened the Turner Contemporary art gallery in Margate with Jools Holland and between May and September 2012 she is holding her first exhibition there, entitled "She Lay Down Deep Beneath The Sea".
Emin is a panelist and speaker: she has lectured at the Victoria and Albert Museum in
London, the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney
(2010), the Royal Academy of Arts (2008), and the Tate Britain in London
(2005) about the links between creativity and autobiography, and the role of subjectivity and personal histories in constructing art. Emin's art takes many different forms of expression including needlework and sculpture, drawing, video and installation, photography and painting.
In December 2011 she was appointed Professor of Drawing at the Royal Academy; along with Fiona Rae, she is one of the first two female professors since the Academy was founded in 1768.
WORK
Monoprints
Emin's monoprints are a well documented part of her creative output. These unique drawings represent a diaristic aspect and frequently depict events from the past for example, Poor Love (1999), From The Week Of Hell '94 (1995) and Ripped Up (1995), which relate to a traumatic experience after an abortion or other personal events as seen in Fuck You Eddy (1995) and Sad Shower in New York (1995) which are both part of the Tate's collection of Emin's
art.
Often they incorporate text as well as image, although some bear only text and others only image. The text appears as the artist's stream of consciousness voice. Some critics have compared Emin's text-only monoprints to ransom notes. The rapid, one-off technique involved in making monoprints is perfectly suited to (apparently) immediate expression, as is Emin's scratchy and informal drawing style. Emin frequently misspells words, deliberately or due to the speed at which she did each drawing. In a 2002 interview with Lynn Barber, Emin
said:
“ It's not cute affectation. If I could spell, then I would spell correctly, but I never bothered to learn. So, rather than be inhibited and say I can't write because I can't spell, I just write and get on with it. ”
Emin created a key series of monoprints in 1997 with the text Something's
Wrong or There Must Be Something Terebley Wrong With
Me [sic] written with spelling mistakes intact in large capital letters alongside "forlorn figures surrounded by space, their outlines fragile on the page. Some are complete bodies, others only female torsos, legs splayed and with odd, spidery flows gushing from their vaginas. They are all accompanied by the legend There's Something
Wrong."
Other key monoprints include a series from 1994 and 1995 known as the Illustrations from Memory series which document Tracey's childhood memories of sexual awakening and other experiences growing up in Margate such as Fucking Down An Ally 16/5/95 (1995) and Illustrations from Memory, the year 1974. In The Livingroom (1994). Emin further produced a set of monoprints detailing her memories of Margate's iconic buildings such as Margate Harbour 16/5/95 (1995), The Lido 16/5/95 (1995) and Light House 15/5/95 (1995). Other drawings from 1994 include the Family Suite series, part of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art collection, consisting of 20 monoprints with "archetypal themes in Emin's art: sex, her family, her abortions, and
Margate". This series of monoprints will be displayed for the first time from August 2008 at the Edinburgh based gallery as part of her first major retrospective, which has been called the Summer Blockbuster
exhibition. A further Family Suite II set was exhibited in Los Angeles in November 2007 as part of Emin's solo show at Gagosian
gallery.
Emin's monoprints are rarely displayed alone in exhibitions, they're particularly effective as collective fragments of intense emotional confrontation. Emin has made several works documenting painful moments of sadness and loneliness experienced when travelling to foreign cities for various exhibitions such as Thinking Of You (2005) and Bath White I
(2005) which were from a series of monoprints drawn directly onto the USA Mondrian hotel
stationery. Emin herself has said:
“ Being an artist isn't just about making nice things, or people patting you on the back; it's some kind of communication, a message. ”
In summer 2009 Emin along with book publisher Rizzoli released a book titled One Thousand Drawings. As the title suggests, the book contains 1000 drawings of Emin's career since 1988. The book was released to coincide with Emin's show Those who suffer love at White Cube which is mainly a drawings
show. Emin said in an interview that "We actually looked at about 2000 drawings and then chose 1000 drawings [for the book]... I'd probably done, over that period of time about 4000
drawings".
Monoprint drawings of mothers and children that Emin drew during a pregnancy in 1990 were included in a 2010 joint exhibition with Paula Rego and Mat Collishaw at the Foundling
Museum.
Painting
Emin displayed six small watercolours in her Turner Prize exhibition in 1999, and also in her New York show Every Part Of Me's Bleeding held that same year, known as the Berlin Watercolour series (1998). These delicate, washed out but colourful watercolours include four portraits of Emin's face and were all painted by Emin in Berlin during 1998, adapted from Polaroids of the artist taking a
bath. Each unique painting from this series share the same title, Berlin The Last Week In April
1998. Simon Wilson, spokesperson for the Tate, commented that Emin included the set of tiny Berlin watercolours "as a riposte to the accusation that there are no
paintings" in the Turner Prize exhibitions. The bath theme seen in these watercolours was later revisited by Emin in her photographic work Sometimes I Feel Beautiful (2000) and in monoprints such as the Bath White (2005) series. With all these works, Emin explores a Mary Cassatt quality of the "woman in a private moment".
Emin's focus on painting has developed over the past few years, starting with the Purple Virgin (2004) acrylic watercolour series of purple brush strokes depicting her naked open legs, and leading to paintings such as Asleep Alone With Legs Open (2005), the Reincarnation (2005) series and Masturbating (2006) amongst others.
In May 2005 London's Evening Standard newspaper highlighted Emin's return to painting in their preview of her When I Think About Sex exhibition at White Cube. Other works were nude self-portrait drawings. Emin was quoted: "For this show I wanted to show that I can really draw, and I think they are really sexy
drawings."
Work for her 2007 show at the Venice Biennale (see below) included large-scale canvases of her legs and vagina. A watercolour series called The Purple Virgins were displayed. There are ten Purple Virgin works in total, six of which were shown at the Biennale. These were accompanied by two canvases of a similar style called How I Think I Feel 1 and 2.
The Venice Biennale was also the first time Emin's Abortion Watercolour series, painted in 1990, had ever been shown in public.
Jay Jopling uncovered a brand new Emin painting, Rose Virgin (2007), as part of White Cube's stand at the Frieze Art Fair in London's Regent's Park on 10 October 2007. More new paintings are expected to be shown in Emin's You Left Me Breathing exhibition in Los Angeles' Gagosian gallery from 2 November 2007, described in a recent interview as an 'exhibition of sculpture and
painting'. A number of new paintings were on display including Get Ready For The Fuck Of Your Life
(2007).
Photography
Emin has produced many photographic works throughout her career, including Monument Valley (Grand Scale)
(1995–97) and Outside Myself (Monument Valley, reading ‘Exploration of the Soul’)
(1995) which resulted "from a trip Emin made to the United States in 1994. She and her then boyfriend, the writer, curator and gallerist Carl Freedman, drove from San Francisco to New York stopping off along the way to give readings from her book, Exploration of the Soul 1994. The photograph shows the artist sitting in an upholstered chair in Monument Valley, a spectacular location on the southern border of Utah with northern Arizona, holding her book. Although it is open, it is not clear whether she is looking at the viewer or at the text in front of her. Emin gave her readings sitting in the chair, which she had inherited from her grandmother, which also became part of Emin's art, There's A Lot Of Money In Chairs
(1994)."
Other photographic works include a series of nine images comprising the work Naked Photos – Life Model Goes Mad (1996) documenting a painting performance Emin made in a room specially built in Galleri Andreas Brändström, Stockholm. Another photographic series, Trying On Clothes From My Friends (She Took The Shirt Off His Back) (1997), shows the artist trying on her friends’ clothes offering up questions of identity.
Other works such as I've Got It All (2000) show Emin with her "legs splayed on a red floor, clutching banknotes and coins to her crotch. Made at a time of public and financial success, the image connects the artist’s desire for money and success and her sexual desire (her role as consumer) with her use of her body and her emotional life to produce her art (the object of
consumption)". Whilst Sometimes I Feel Beautiful (2000) pictures Emin lying alone in a bath. Both these works are examples of Emin using "large-scale photographs of herself to record and express moments of emotional significance in her life, frequently making reference to her career as an artist. The photographs have a staged quality, as though the artist is enacting a private
ritual."
Emin's most iconic are the two self portraits taken inside her famous beach hut, The Last Thing I Said To You Is Don't Leave Me Here I (2000) and The Last Thing I Said To You Is Don't Leave Me Here II (2000). The latter two photographs are a diptych although they are often exhibited and sold separately. They depict a naked Emin on her knees inside her beach hut which she and friend Sarah Lucas had bought in
Whitstable, Kent in 1992. The hut itself later became the sculpture The Last Thing I Said To You Is Don't Leave Me Here (The Hut) (1999). They are part of museum collections including Tate Modern, the Saatchi Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery (United Kingdom) and have been mass produced as postcards sold in museum shops around the world.
Neon
Emin has also worked with neon lights. One such piece is You Forgot To Kiss My Soul
(2001) which consists of those words in blue neon inside a neon heart-shape. Another neon piece is made from the words Is Anal Sex Legal
(1998). to complement another Is Legal Sex Anal (1998) For the Venice Biennale, Emin produced a series of new purple neon works, for example, Legs I
(2007). This 2007 series of Legs neon works were directly inspired by the Purple Virgin (2004) watercolour series. For example, Legs IV
(2007) directly follows the watercolour lines of the Purple Virgin 9 (2004). For a joint 2010 exhibition with Paula Rego and Mat Collishaw she decorated the front of the Foundling Museum with the neon words "Foundlings and fledglings are angels of this
earth".
Emin has donated neon work to auction for charity and in 2007, her neon Keep Me Safe reached the highest price ever made for one of her neon works of over £60,000. A brand new neon piece called With You I Want To Live will be shown as part of Emin's You Left Me Breathing exhibition in November/December 2007 at the Gagosian Gallery in Los
Angeles.
Fabric
Emin frequently works with fabric in the form of appliqués — material (often cut out into lettering) sewn onto other material. She collects fabric from curtains, bed sheets and linen and has done so for most of her life. She keeps such material that holds emotional significance for later use in her work. Many of her large scale appliqués are made on hotel linens, for example, It Always Hurts (2005), Sometimes I Feel So Fucking Lost (2005), Volcano Closed (2001) and Helter Fucking Skelter (2001). Hate And Power Can Be A Terrible Thing (2004), part of the Tate's collection of Emin's work, is a large scale blanket inspired in part by Margaret Thatcher due to her involvement in "an attack on 800 boys and men in the Argentinian navy" and other women for example women who steals their friends' boyfriends, Emin says of this work "about the kind of women I hate, the kind of women I have no respect for, women who betray and destroy the hearts of other
women".
Emin's use of fabric is diverse, one of her most famous works came from sewing letters onto her grandmother's armchair in There's A Lot Of Money In Chairs (1994). The chair was very detailed, "including her and her twin brother’s names, the year of her grandmother’s birth (1901) and the year of her birth (1963) on either side of the words ‘another world’, referring to the passing of time. An exchange between the artist and her grandmother using the nicknames they had for each other: ‘Ok
Puddin, Thanks Plum’, covers the bottom front of the chair and a saying of Emin’s grandmother’s, ‘There’s a lot of money in chairs’, is appliquéd in pink along the top and front of its back. Behind the chair back, the first page of Exploration of the Soul, handwritten onto fabric, is appliquéd together with other dictums such as, ‘It’s not what you inherit. It’s what you do with your
inheritance’". Emin used the chair on a trip Emin made to the United States in 1994. Driving from San Francisco to New York stopping off along the way to give readings from her book, Exploration of the Soul (1994). Emin gave her readings sitting in the upholstered chair and "as she crossed the United States, the artist sewed the names of the places she visited – San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Las Vegas, Monument Valley, Detroit, Pittsburgh, New York - onto the front of the
chair". Emin also posed in the chair for two of her photographic works (see Photography) whilst in Monument Valley, in the Arizona Desert. It is currently on public display at Pallant House Gallery until 6 March 2011 as part of the exhibition, 'Contemporary Eye: Crossovers.'
Emin has made a large number of smaller scale works, often including hand sewn words and images, such as Falling Stars (2001), It Could Have Been Something (2001), Always Sorry (2005) and As Always (2005).
On 13 April 2007, Emin launched a specially designed flag made out of fabric with the message One Secret Is To Save Everything written in orange-red letters across the banner made up of hand-sewn swimming sperm. Tracey Emin's flag, at 21 feet by 14 feet, will fly above the Jubilee Gardens in the British capital until 31 July 2007, with the parliament building and the London Eye as backdrops. Emin called the artwork "a flag made from wishful
thinking". The flag was commissioned by the South Bank Centre in London's Waterloo.
In June 2007, on returning from the Venice Biennale, Emin donated a piece of artwork, a
hand-sewn blanket called Star Trek Voyager to be auctioned at Elton John's annual glamorous White Tie & Tiara Ball to raise money for The Elton John AIDS Foundation. The piece of artwork sold for £800,000.
Emin's works on fabric has been related to other artists such as Louise Bourgeois, who Emin actually mentions in a sewn work called The Older Woman (2005) with the phrase
(monoprint on fabric), "I think my Dad should have gone out with someone older like Louise, Louise
Bourgeois". Emin was interviewed by Alan Yentob during the BBC's Imagine documentary Spiderwoman about Louise Bourgeois, aired in the UK on 13 November
2007.
Found objects
Emin has often made use of found objects in her work from the early use of a cigarette box found in a car crash in which her uncle died. The most well known example is My Bed, where she displayed her bed. Another instance is the removal of her beach hut from Whitstable to be displayed in a gallery. This work was titled The Last Thing I Said To You Is Don't Leave Me Here (The Hut) (1999).
She revisited the theme of the bed in 2002, with the mixed media installation, To Meet My Past
(2002), another installation with a four poster bed with embroidered text such as Weird Sex and To Meet My Past hanging down alongside the
mattress.
Emin also incorporated stones and rocks which had been thrown through her window in a mixed media piece in her 2005 show. The work consists of a monoprint of herself sitting on a chair with the stones lined up below the drawing in a
vitrine.
The Leg (2004) included a plaster cast inside a
vitrine, kept by the artist after she broke her leg, exhibited alongside a C-print photograph of the artist wearing the
cast.
Installations
Emin has created a number of installation art pieces including Poor Thing (Sarah and Tracey) (2001) which was made up of two hanging frames, hospital gowns, a water bottle and wire. A similar installation called Feeling Pregnant III (2005) made up of fabric hung off wooden and metal coat hangers and stands was a later creation for
Emin. Both these installations touch further on Emin's relationship with pregnancy and abortion and can be related to Louise Bourgeois' sculptures such as Untitled (1996), a mobile of hanging clothes, and Untitled (2007), a series of standing bronze sculptures.
The Perfect Place to Grow (2001) was a video installation with a set consisting of a wooden birdhouse, a DVD (shot on Super 8), monitor, trestle, plants, wooden ladder. This installation has been exhibited at the Tate Britain in 2004 in their room dedicated to Emin's work and also White Cube in 2001. It was dedicated to her father, creating the bird house as a tiny home for my dad and Emin thought of the works' title from the idea of nature and
nurture.
Knowing My Enemy (2002) was a large scale installation created by Emin for her Modern Art Oxford solo show of that year. Consisting of reclaimed wood and steel, Emin created a wooden 'look-out' house upon a long, broken, wooden pier. It's Not the Way I Want to Die (2005) was another large scale installation, part of Emin's 2005 solo show at White Cube. Emin created a large rollercoaster track with reclaimed timber and metal. Displayed in the same show was a smaller installation work called Self Portrait (2005) which consisted of a tin bath, bamboo, wire and neon
light. Another related installation Sleeping With You (2005) consisted of painted reclaimed timber and a thin neon light across a dark
wall.
Films
Emin featured with her then boyfriend, Billy Childish, in Quiet Lives (1982) (11 mins, 16 mm, written and directed by Eugene Doyen), once available with Cheated and Room for Rent in A Hangman Triple Bill, also known as The Hangman Trilogy, Hangman Films. Quiet Lives is discussed in an article on Childish's films in No Focus: punk on film
(Headpress, 2006).
An autobiographical work is the film, CV Cunt Vernacular (1997), in which Emin narrates her story from childhood in Margate, through her student years, abortions and destruction of her early work.
Top Spot (2004) is a feature-length non-fiction production, mixing DV footage and Super 8 film into lyrical montage. The title refers to a youth
centre/disco in Margate (but also a sexual reference), Top Spot. The film draws heavily on Emin's teenage experiences of growing up in Margate, and features six teenage girls who share their stories. The natural beauty of the sea and the sunsets is linked with Margate’s more manmade pleasures, underscored with a selection of 1970s songs that formed the soundtrack to the artist’s own adolescence. It was shot during the summertime in Margate, London, and Egypt. Emin withdrew the film from general distribution in cinemas, after the film was rated with an 18
certificate. In December 2004 the film was broadcast on BBC3 television in the
UK. A DVD of the film was released in 2004.
Books
Six Turkish Tales (1987) was published by Hangman books as written by T. K.
Emin. Emin's editor for Six Turkish Tales was Billy Childish and Bill Lewis and the cover was illustrated by Billy Childish.
Exploration Of The Soul (1994) An autobiographical short story which goes from Emin¹s conception to age thirteen. It was a limited edition of 200 copies. Signed on inside with 2 original colour photographs. Book is housed in a hand-sewn white cloth bag with 2 coloured cloth letters "TE" hand sewn
(colours such came in green, blue, yellow, pink). In 2003 the book was re-released as an edition of 1000 by Counter Editions (minus the cloth bag/photographs).
Details of Depression (2003) Written by Emin using her full name, Tracey Karima
Emin: Cyprus/London. Another limited edition, stamped on the back cover, which brings together an ancient Arabic poem and a series of photographs taken around Northern Cyprus. Published by Counter Editions at the same time as the re-issued version of Exploration Of The Soul.
Strangeland (2005) was Emin's long-awaited memoir. It is divided into three sections, "Motherland", "Fatherland" and
"Traceyland". It is written in the first person and conveys an unvarnished look at her life from childhood. Jeanette Winterson wrote, "Her latest writings are painfully honest, and certainly some of it should have been edited out by someone who loves her."[68] Emin's editor for Strangeland was the British novelist Nicholas
Blincoe. This book also attracted considerable media coverage and Billy Childish publicly questioned some accounts in newspaper
articles.
Those Who Suffer Love (2009) A new compiled selection of Tracey Emin’s GQ poems complete with accompanying drawings.
Love Is What You Want (2011) A new survey of work, accompanying Emin's major show at the Hayward Gallery in London.
My Life in a Column (2011)
Sculpture
In February 2005 Emin's first public artwork, a bronze sculpture, went on display outside the Oratory, adjacent to Liverpool Cathedral. It consists of a small bird perched on a tall bronze pole, and is designed so that the bird seems to disappear when viewed from the front. It was commissioned by the
BBC. "Emin's work stands outside The Oratory, in Upper Duke Street just outside the Cathedral. The Roman Standard - which features a small bird on top of a
four-metre high bronze pole - is a tribute to the city's famous symbol the Liver Bird. The sculpture was commissioned by the BBC as part of their contribution to the art05 festival and Liverpool's year as European Capital of Culture in 2008. Emin says the sculpture represents strength and
femininity." In September 2008 Emin unveiled a brand new neon work that will "be installed in the well of the
cathedral" Emin herself says of her continuing relationship of making public sculptures in the town, "When Liverpool is Capital of Culture in 2008, I'll be making a large work for the Anglican Cathedral, which I'm really looking forward
to."
Other sculptures have included Death Mask (2002) which is a bronze cast of her own head. Emin loaned this work to the National Portrait Gallery in
2005 “ The death mask", which enjoyed a popular revival in the nineteenth century, was a method for preserving the final expression and physiognomy of the famous or infamous, largely based on the belief that facial features and proportion could explain personal attributes such as genius or criminality. These likenesses were often produced and distributed in multiples as plaster casts could be taken from a bronze original.
In an ironic reference to the much discussed autobiographical nature of her practice which has dominated critical reception of her work, Emin has cast her own death mask during her life-time creating a contemporary portrait with an historic allusion through her use of this lost tradition.
Death Masks were most usually made of male subjects. The red appliqué fabric on which Emin's bronze head is placed refers to the frequent use of quilting and embroidery in her work, associated with the domestic sphere of women, which challenges masculine frameworks of history and art history.
Emin, whose work is often based on images of herself, once commented "It is like they have seen my art by seeing me". In this work she offers herself in perpetuity as an enclosed specimen or museum display, literally transforming herself into an object for the scrutiny of generations to
come.
”
At Emin's 2007 Venice Biennale exhibition, as well as the central exhibition's Tower sculptures, tall wooden towers consisting of small pieces of timber piled together, a new small bronze-cast sculpture work of a child's pink sock was revealed Sock (2007) on display on the steps of the British
Pavilion. Her exhibition again attracted widespread UK media coverage, both positive and
negative.
In September 2007 Emin announced she would be exhibiting new sculpture work in the inaugural Folkestone Triennial which took place in the Kent town from June until September 2008. In June 2008 Emin discussed the Folkestone sculptures, stating the "high percentage" of teenage pregnancies in the Kent town had inspired this latest
work. Emin said her contribution would be different pieces placed around the town,
“ I'm going to be making very tiny bronze-cast items of baby clothing. It's baby clothes that I have found in the street, like a mitten or a
sock. ”
Emin's 2007 solo show at Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles' Beverly Hills included brand new sculpture works described by Emin as, "some very strange little sculptures. They are nearly all of animals, apart from one, which is a pineapple. They rest on mini-plinths made in a really brilliant LA, beach, California, Fifties surfer kind of style. Different woods put together in cute pattern formations. In some places the wood is 18th-century floorboards, some bits of cabin from tall ships or things which could have been found on the seashore –
driftwood." The New York Times included Emin in a piece about artists who are Originals with a new photograph with two sculptures, one of a small bird on a thin stand and a large seagull, both sculptures placed upon wooden
plinths.
Gagosian further described the many different sculptures from the show as, "a group of delicate wood and jesmonite sculptures, which expand on the spirals,
rollercoasters, and bridges of recent years. Others incorporate cast bronze figures – seagulls, songbirds, and frogs — or objects combining cement and glass, which are placed on tables or bundled bases made from found
timbers."
In late November 2007 it was announced that Emin was one of six artists to have been shortlisted to propose a sculpture for the fourth plinth in London's Trafalgar Square. The other shortlisted artists were Jeremy
Deller, Antony Gormley, Anish Kapoor, Yinka Shonibare, and Bob and Roberta Smith - the professional name of Patrick
Brill. The contenders were commissioned to produce a scale model of their idea. On 6 January 2008, it was revealed Emin's proposal was a lifesize model of a group of four
meerkats, the desert mammal. Entitled Something for the Future it consists of a sculpture of four meerkats "as a symbol of unity and safety." as "whenever Britain is in crisis or, as a nation, is experiencing sadness and loss (for example, after
Princess Diana's funeral), the next programme on television is
'Meerkats United.'" The successful proposals were announced in 2008 as
Gormley, whose project One & Other occupied the plinth in summer 2009 and
Shonibare, whose work Nelson's Ship in a Bottle was unveiled in 2010.
Definition of art
In common with many YBAs, including Damien Hirst, Emin employs assistants for fabrication purposes, for example sewing the lettering onto her appliquéd pieces.
A poster she photocopied and put up around her home when her cat Docket went missing became an object collected by people, but was excluded by Emin from her
canon.
In 2000 Emin was commissioned, as part of a scheme throughout London titled Art in Sacred
Spaces, to collaborate with children on an artwork at Ecclesbourne Primary School in Islington, North London. Pupils made the piece with her in Emin's style of sewing cut out letters onto a large piece of material. In 2004 the school enquired if Emin would sign the work so that the school could sell it as an original to raise funds. They planned to auction the piece for £35,000 for an arts
unit, as it could not afford to display the large work. Emin and her gallery White Cube refused saying that it was not a piece of her art, therefore reducing its value and requested it be
returned. But Emin quickly came to an agreement with the school, where she paid £4,000 to create a perspex display box for the patchwork quilt to be showcased. Taking as her theme the title "Tell me something beautiful", Emin invited eight-year-olds to nominate their ideas of beauty and then to sew the keywords in felt letters on bright fabric squares. The resulting bold patchwork, featured words such as "tree", "sunrise", "dolphin" and
"nan".
Art critic John
Slyce, who has worked on school collaborations with artists, supported Emin and White Cube's decision saying, "This is a horrific precedent for the school to try to set. They were lucky to have an artist of that stature spending that amount of time with them ... the artwork should remain in context with the kids. Children's primary experience of art should not be as a
commodity."
Modern Art Oxford (2002-2003)
From November 2002 - January 2003, Tracey Emin's solo exhibition This Is Another Place was held at Modern Art Oxford and marked the museum's reopening[88] and renaming to Modern Art
Oxford. The exhibition was Emin's first British exhibition since 1997. The exhibition contained
drawings, etchings, film, neon works such as Fuck off and die, you slag, and sculptures including a large scale wooden pier, called Knowing My
Enemy, with a wooden shack on top made from reclaimed timber. Emin commented that her choice to exhibit in Oxford was due to personal reasons as museum director Andrew Nairne had always been "a big supporter of my work".[88] An exhibition catalogue included 50 illustrations: "a compilation of images and writings reflecting her life, her sexual experiences and her desires and
fears."
Momart fire (2004)
On 24 May 2004, a fire in a Momart storage warehouse in East London destroyed many works from the Saatchi collection, including Emin's famous tent with appliquéd letters, Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963–1995 ("The Tent") (1995) and The Last Thing I Said To You Is Don't Leave Me Here ("The Hut") (1999), Emin's blue wooden beach hut that she bought with fellow artist Sarah Lucas and shared with her boyfriend of the time, the gallerist Carl Freedman. Emin spoke out angrily against what she perceived as a general public lack of sympathy, and even amusement, at the loss of the artworks in the
fire. However, she also put the loss in her perspective, commenting:
“ I'm also upset about those people whose wedding got bombed last week [in Iraq], and people being dug out from under 400ft of mud in the Dominican
Republic. ”
Venice Biennale (2007)
In August 2006 the British Council announced that they had chosen Emin to produce a show of new and past works for the British Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007. Emin was the second woman to produce a solo show for the UK at the Biennale, following Rachel Whiteread in 1997. In a BBC interview, Andrea Rose, the commissioner for the British Pavilion, said the exhibition would allow Emin's work to be viewed "in an international context and at a distance from the YBA generation with which she came to
prominence."
Emin has chosen the title Borrowed Light for the in-depth exhibition of her work. The artist produced new work especially for the British Pavilion, using a wide variety of media - from needlework, photography and video to drawing, painting, sculpture and neon. A promotional British Council flyer includes an image of a previously unseen monoprint for the exhibition called Fat Minge (1994) which will be included in the show whilst the Telegraph
newspaper featured a photo of a new purple neon Legs I (2007) which will be on display (directly inspired by Emin's 2004 purple watercolour Purple Virgin series. Emin herself summed up her Biennale exhibition work
as:
“ Pretty and hard-core ”
Emin was interviewed about the Venice Biennale in her East London studio by the BBC's Kirsty
Wark; this was broadcast on BBC Four television channel in November 2006. Emin showed Wark some work-in-progress, which included large-scale canvases with paintings of Emin's legs and vagina. Starting with the Purple Virgin (2004) acrylic watercolour series with their strong purple brush strokes depicting Emin's naked open legs, leading to Emin's paintings in 2005-6 such as Asleep Alone With Legs Open (2005), the Reincarnation (2005) series and Masturbating (2006) amongst others, these works are a significant new development in her artistic output.
In an interview with Lynn Barber published in The Observer newspaper the week before the launch of Emin's biennale show, the artist said of her
work:
“ It's the most feminine work I've ever made. ”
Andrea Rose, the British Pavilion commissioner, added to this commenting on the art Emin has produced, 'It's remarkably ladylike. There is no ladette work - no toilet with a poo in it - and actually it is very mature I think, quite lovely. She is much more interested in formal values than people might expect, and it shows in this exhibition. It's been revelatory working with her. Tracey's reputation for doing shows and hanging them is not good, but she's been a dream to work with. What it shows is that she's moved a long way away from the YBAs. She's quite a lady
actually!'
Royal Academician (2007)
On 29 March 2007, Tracey Emin was made Royal Academician by the Royal Academy of
Arts. Emin became a member of the Royal Academy joining an elite group of artists including David Hockney, Peter Blake, Anthony Caro and Alison Wilding. This entitles Emin to exhibit up to six works in the annual summer
exhibition.
Emin has a long history of exhibiting her art at the Royal Academy, having been invited to include works at their Summer Exhibitions in 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004 and 2001. For 2004's Summer Exhibition, Emin was chosen by fellow artist David Hockney to submit two monoprints, one called And I'd Love To Be The One (1997) and another on the topic of Emin's abortion called Ripped Up (1995) as that year's theme celebrated the art of drawing as part of the creative process. Whilst 2007 saw Emin exhibit a neon work called Angel (2005). Emin's art was first included at the Royal Academy as part of the Sensation exhibition in 1997.
For the June 2008 Summer Exhibition, Emin was invited to curate a
gallery. Emin also gave a public talk in June 2008 interviewed by art critic and broadcaster Matthew Collings, contemplating her role within the Royal Academy, the Academy’s relationship to the contemporary art world, and her perspective, as an artist, on hanging and curating a gallery in the Summer
Exhibition. She also exhibited her famous "Space Monkey" print at the 2009 Royal Academy Summer
Exhibition.
Twenty Years retrospective (2008)
The first major retrospective of Emin's work was held in Edinburgh between August and November
2008 attracting over 40,000 visitors, breaking the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art’s record for an exhibition of work by a living
artist.
The large scale exhibition included the full range of Emin's art from the rarely seen early work to the iconic My Bed (1998) and the room-sized installation Exorcism of the Last Painting I Ever Made (1996). The show displayed her unique appliquéd blankets, paintings, sculptures, films, neons, drawings and monoprints. The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art was the only UK venue for the show which travels to the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo in Málaga, Spain and then to the Kunstmuseum in Bern, Switzerland from
2009.
It was reported on 6 November 2008 that Emin gifted a major sculpture to the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art as a "thank
you" to both the gallery and the city of Edinburgh. The work called Roman Standard (2005) comprises a 13-foot-tall (4.0 m) bronze pole, surmounted by a little bird, cast in bronze. The work has an estimated value of at least £75,000.
Love Is What You Want retrospective (2011)
In May–August 2011 a major survey exhibition at London's Hayward Gallery consisted of work from all aspects of Emin’s art
practice, revealing facets of the artist and her work that are frequently
overlooked. The exhibition included painting, drawing, photography, textiles, video and sculpture, with rarely before seen early works alongside more recent large-scale installations. Emin made a new series of outdoor sculptures especially for this solo
show.
The Vanishing Lake - Frieze Fair (2011)
On 6 October 2011 Emin opened a site-specific exhibition at Fitzroy Square. The title is taken from her novel which has served as a catalyst for a series of new works, created for a neoclassical house designed by Robert Adam in 1794. The exhibition also featured a series of embroidered texts and hand-woven tapestries continue Emin’s interest in the domestic and handcrafted tradition.
On the afternoon of 15 October graffiti artist RSH poured red paint on the street and pavement outside the Gregorian building at 6 Fitzroy Square as a statement about the false nature of Emin's art
work.
London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games
Tracey Emin is a mentor on the BA Great Britons Programme, and will mentor an up and coming British talent to produce artwork for twelve BA aircraft in the run up to the London 2012
Games. Emin will also produce a poster and limited edition print for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, one of only twelve British artists
selected.
On 19 July Emin carried the Olympic torch through her hometown of
Margate.
STUCKISM
Emin's relationship with the artist and musician Billy Childish led to the name of the Stuckism movement in 1999. Childish, who had mocked Emin's new affiliation to conceptualism in the early '90s, was told by Emin, "Your paintings are stuck, you are stuck! – Stuck! Stuck! Stuck!" (that is, stuck in the past for not accepting the YBA approach to art). He recorded the incident in the poem, "Poem for a Pissed Off Wife" published in "Big Hart and Balls" Hangman Books 1994, from which Charles Thomson, who knew them both, later coined the term Stuckism.
Emin and Childish had remained on friendly terms up until 1999, but the activities of the Stuckist group offended her and caused a lasting rift with Childish.
In a 2003 interview, she was asked about the
Stuckists:
“ "I don't like it at all," she spat. "I don't really want to talk about it. If your wife was stalked and hounded through the media by someone she'd had a relationship with when she was 18, would you like it? That's what happened to me. I don't find it funny, I find it a bit sick, and I find it very cruel, and I just wish people would get on with their own lives and let me get on with mine. ”
Childish left the Stuckist movement in 2001.
CHARITY
Emin is well known for her charity work including raising over a million pounds for children's charities such as the NSPCC and for HIV/AIDS charities including the Terrence Higgins
Trust. Emin frequently donates original artworks for charity auctions, and has often adopted the role of auctioneer on the charity night to help increase the highest bid.
In June 2007, on returning from the Venice Biennale, Emin donated a piece of artwork, a handsewn blanket called Star Trek Voyager to be auctioned at Elton John's annual glamorous White Tie & Tiara Ball to raise money for The Elton John AIDS Foundation. The piece of artwork sold for £800,000. Also in June 2007, Emin's neon work Keep Me Safe reached the highest price ever (at that time) made for one of her neon works of over £60,000.
Emin has participated in The Independent newspaper's Christmas Appeal for many years, where she has offered for auction bespoke artworks and also drawing lessons with the artist. In December 2006 Emin's lot raised £14,000 for a one-on-one drawing lesson, over champagne and cake, with the
artist. The following year, in December 2007, Emin's lot raised £25,150 for their appeal offering a special unique drawing of the highest bidder's pet embroidered on to a cushion in Emin's trademark
style.
In January 2008 Emin went to Uganda where she had set up the brand new "Tracey Emin Library" at the rural Forest High School. She explained in her newspaper column, "Schools here don't have libraries. In fact, rural areas have very little. Most have no doctor, no clinic, no hospital; schools are few and far between. Education cannot afford to be a priority, but it should be... I think this library may be just the
beginning."
On Valentine's Day 2008, Emin donated a red, heart-shaped neon artwork called I Promise To Love You (2007) for a charity auction to raise money for The Global Fund, which helps women and children affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa. The auction was called (Auction) RED. The work sold for a record price
$220,000, which was much higher than the guide estimates of between $60,000 and
$80,000.
MUSIC
In 1998 Emin duetted with pop singer Boy George on a song called Burning Up, released on an 18 track audio CD that accompanied the book We love
you.
In 2005 Emin compiled a CD of her favourite music called Music To Cry To released and sold by the UK household furnishings retailer and brand
Habitat.
In 2009 Emin designed the album artwork for singer/songwriter Harper Simon, son of Paul Simon. The front cover depicts an aeroplane, drawn in Emin's scratchy monoprint
style.
POLITICS
Emin has been a critic of Britain's income tax regime, stating "I’m simply not willing to pay tax at 50%", she is "very seriously considering leaving Britain", and suggests she will live in France. "The French have lower tax rates and they appreciate arts and
culture." Emin has since denied that she intends to leave the country, stating that a journalist she spoke to previously exaggerated her comments, and that London is her home, and is the context in which she
belongs.
The Independent newspaper reported in August 2010 that Emin is thought of as a supporter of the Conservative
Party. Indeed, in an interview with the New Statesman she revealed that she voted for the Conservatives at the 2010 General Election, adding, "We've got the best government at the moment that we've ever
had."
MARKET
PRICES
Emin's auction record, set at Christie's, London, in December 2010, is £130,000 (hammer price), paid for her 2004 appliqué blanket It's The Way We
Think. Only one other of her works has ever fetched more than £100,000, the red neon light installation I promise to love you, which fetched £102,040 (US$200,000) at Sotheby's, New York, in February 2008.
NOTABLE
EXHIBITIONS
'The Wonderful Fund - Collecting Art for the New Millenium', Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, 2006
'Body - New Art from the UK', Ottawa Art Gallery, Ontario, Canada, 2005
'Tracey Emin', Magasin - Centre National d'art Contemporain de Grenoble, France, 2005
'Premieres', Museum of Modern Art, New York, US, 2004
'David Hockney/Tracey Emin Dibujos', Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Santiago, Chile, 2004
'Happiness - A Survival Guide for Art and Life', Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan, 2003
'Just Love Me - Post Feministic Art of the 1990s', Bergen Kunstmuseum, Bergen, Germany, 2003 
2003
Art
Gallery of New South Wales, Australia 
2002
'This is Another Place', Great Museum of Modern Art, Oxford
'Ten Years', Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
'I Think it's in my head', Lehmann Laupin Gallery, New York 
Haus der Kunst, München
'You forgot to kiss my soul', White Cube2, London
'Rapture: Art's Seduction by Fashion Since 1970', Barbican Gallery, London 
2001
'Century City', Tate Modern, London 
2000
'Love is a Strange Thing', Fig.1, London
'What Do You Know About Love', Galerie Gebauer, Berlin 
1999
'Every Part of Me's Bleeding', Lehmann Maupin, New York
'The British Art Show 5', The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh (National Touring Exhibitions) 
1999
'Loose Threads', Serpentine Gallery, London
'Turner Prize', Tate Gallery, London 
1998
'Sensation', Royal Academy of Arts, London; Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, 
1996
'Full House', Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg 
1996
'Life/Live', Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; Centro de Exposições do Centro Cultural de Belém, Lisbon (curated by Hans-Ulrich Obrist) 
1993
'Minky Manky', South London Gallery, London; Arnolfini, Bristol (curated by Carl Freedman) 
1993
'Hotel Carlton Palace' Chambre 763, Hotel Carlton Palace, Paris (curated by Hans-Ulrich Obrist) 
1994
'Karaoke & Football', Portikus, Frankfurt
LINKS
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