Tracey Emin

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Born: 1963

Summary of Tracey Emin

Tracey Emin is known as the “bad girl of British art” because of her raunchy public appearances and self-righteous paintings, both of which run against to cultural standards and prior ideas of femininity in England. Her profoundly intimate and candid artwork, which she promotes through her notoriety and usage of the popular media, is her most well-known work. Unreported rape, public humiliation, misogyny, botched abortions, drunkenness, and promiscuity have all been subjects in her work. From the critique of expressionism to the politics of female representation, the quality of Emin’s work is frequently disputed.

Her work is sometimes described to as confessional since it is based on her own personal background. In self-portraits and performances, she has used her own body as a medium. Her works use the therapeutic and spiritual aspects of art to execute self-mapping and self-commemoration.

Emin’s celebrity stemmed from journalistic speculation rather than critical debate about her work, and her character is her own kind of unabashed creative commodity that defied societal conventions (particularly British norms). Emin was catapulted to superstar status by the disputed reception of her public appearances before reality television programming became as popular as it is now. Emin’s fame in the contemporary art world was cemented by her loud unwelcomed criticism and brazen telling of a woman’s autobiography, which capitalised on the public’s love of voyeuristic-like television. She defied the image of the prim and proper Englishwoman, airing her dirty linen in public through her art and public appearances. Emin’s work has a performative element to it, and it has a purpose other than self-expression, in that her character has been built for her by the public, and she has played the “bad girl” that the public has embraced critically. Her work incorporates society reaction; she invites criticism, even if it comes in the form of gossip tabloids. Despite her denial that her work serves a feminist greater good, her courage to be vulnerable and honest in her work blurs the line between life and art, highlighting the disparities between men and women’s ability to critically and publicly engage with topics like alcoholism, gender roles, and, most controversially, sex.

Childhood

Tracey Emin was born in the English county of Surrey. She and her twin brother Paul grew raised in Margate, on the Kent coast. She shared a prosperous beach hotel with her mother, where she claims she was pampered “like a princess.” Her Turkish father spent half of the week with them while the other half was spent with his wife and other children. Emin’s father departed after a few years and took his money with him, leaving Emin’s mother penniless. Emin subsequently recalled that the family had two metres, one for gas and one for electricity, but they could never afford to have both on at the same time. Emin was raped when she was 13 years old, which she subsequently claimed “happened to a lot of girls.”

Early Life

Between 1980 to 1982, Emin left Margate to study fashion at the Medway College of Design. She met Billy Childish, an avant-garde figure who was a student at the institution until he was dismissed. Emin considers her friendship with the colourful writer, their work at Childish’s tiny press, and her printing studies at Maidstone Art College to be essential artistic experiences in her development as an artist. Emin’s engagement with Childish terminated in 1987, and she relocated to London. She earned a master’s degree in painting from the Royal College of Art in 1989. She went through an incredibly difficult period after leaving the institution, during which she had two abortions, and this experience drove her to trash all of the work she had done at the Royal College. While she was still coming to grips with her own creative practise, she encouraged a reactionary movement known as Stuckism, which aimed to favour figurative painting above the conceptual work Emin was focusing on at the time. Billy Childish, Emin’s ex-boyfriend, created it in 1999. Emin gave the style its name after telling Childish that his paintings were “Stuck! Stuck! Stuck!” Once Emin grew to popularity following his breakup with Childish, he became extremely public about Emin’s creative practise. “Taking cultural things and turning them into mere commerce is very dangerous,” he added, referring to the art business and, as a result, the popularity of her work. Professional football and professional art have both destroyed their respective fields. Decadence and superficiality have taken hold, and I’m beginning to question if we’ve gotten what we deserve. I find it strange that British artists credit the influence of someone like Duchamp, who was involved in anti-art and mocked the pompous pretentious art establishment. The greatest irony is that they are now part of that arrogant art establishment, yet they continue to promote the notion that they are undermining something.” Childish’s own Stuckism movement was more concerned with opposing the conceptual art craze and promoting the work of realistic artists. The Stuckism movement is still alive, and it is well-known for protesting the Turner Prize each year to demonstrate its ongoing hostility. The Stuckism art movement is a reaction to artists like Emin, but her creative presence is the foundation of their movement, since it would not exist without her.

She sparked the trend not just by criticising Childish’s work, but also by her own artwork and the public’s approval of it. They may oppose her, but they rely on her specific kind of artistic renown to keep their suffering going.

Mid Life

Emin became friends with several of the other artists who would eventually be known as the Young British Artists, including Sarah Lucas and Damien Hirst, after coming to London. Although Emin did not join the group aesthetically until the early 1990s, the group began to show together in 1988. From the outset of the artists’ careers, the gallerist Charles Saatchi was a fan and collector, and he is generally credited with “discovering” them. The group’s name was inspired by the title of a March 1992 exhibition at Saatchi’s gallery called “Young British Artists I”.

Emin collaborated with Sarah Lucas to open “The Shop” in Bethnal Green, London’s East End, in 1993. They offered t-shirts, ash trays, paper mache sex toys, and costumes by both artists, introducing a hitherto unseen commercialism to their creative processes that would become a distinguishing element of Young British Art. In the same year, Emin held her first solo show at London’s White Cube. Emin created My Major Retrospective, a part-installation, part-archive with a strong autobiographical slant, by bringing together a collection of personal artefacts and pictures. This aspect of autobiography is crucial to her ongoing work. Emin established a connection with curator and art world figure Carl Freedman in the mid-1990s. Damien Hirst was a friend of Freedman’s, and the two had collaborated on several of Hirst’s early exhibits, which exposed Young British Art to the world. In 1994, the pair went on a trip to the United States, where Emin supported herself by performing readings. They also spent time together in Whitstable, on the Kent coast, where Emin bought a beach cottage with her friend Sarah Lucas. “I was completely broke and it was really brilliant, having your own property by the sea.” she said of how much she liked owning property for the first time. Freedman staged a show named “Minky Manky” in 1995, in which he pushed Emin to develop larger, less ephemeral works. The result was her well-known piece, Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963-1995 (1995), a tent embroidered with the names of everyone she had ever shared a bed with, sexual or otherwise. Her work is characterised by this aesthetic touch through words. Emin’s neon messages, stitched phrases, monoprints, and hand-cut letters for appliqué designs all include her own handwriting. Her artworks contain misspellings and language errors, as though to add humiliations and failures to her genuineness. Emin initially gained public notice in 1997 when she appeared on a television broadcast about the Turner Prize, when she was angry and intoxicated, cursing in front of a panel of academics on live television. She ended her presentation by stating, “I’m going right now because I want to be with my friends and my mother. I’m going to call her, and she’ll be humiliated about this discussion; it’s live, and I don’t give a damn. It makes no difference to me.” “you people aren’t relating to me now, you’ve lost me” she said before removing her lapel mike and walking out in the middle of the live broadcast while still talking. Emin was shortlisted for the Turner Prize for her controversial piece My Bed two years after her inebriated television performance (1998). Only one of the four British artists nominated can win the award, and Emin was defeated by Steve McQueen that year. She was nicknamed the “bad girl of British art” in the newspaper attention that surrounded her. Many people, even the lowest English tabloids, expressed their thoughts regarding the sorts of stains and impurities in her artwork at the time. Despite the fact that she has yet to win the Turner Prize, it was the trigger for her popularity. During this time, her art evolved and she acquired a more distinct style. Her use of stitching and appliqué methods situates her work within a feminist discourse tradition in modern and contemporary art. These methods were seen as domestic handicrafts and were generally regarded as low in the hierarchy of art, as well as a part of the normative feminine activity – a view that Feminist art has successfully combated. Emin is unconcerned with being linked with “low art” or “women’s work” since she embraces her own sexuality and femininity, and sets a high value on it.

Famous Art by Tracey Emin

Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963-95

1995

Tracey Emin initially rose to prominence as a result of this project, both in the art world and among the general public. Emin made it by sewing the names of everyone with whom she has ever shared a bed into a tiny tent. The tent was displayed with its entrance open, lights within, and a mattress inside. Interestingly, many people originally attacked Everyone I Have Ever Slept With, claiming that the list of sexual conquests was more of a kind of boasting than a piece of art. Emin’s choice of words in her title, on the other hand, lends subtlety to the piece. The 102 persons she has “slept with” refers to those with whom she has shared a bed or actually slept next to. Her grandmother, twin brother Paul, and two aborted babies are among the numerous names named, particularly the non-sexual partners. This article is less about sexual intimacy and more about human connection in general. Furthermore, the modest size of the tent and the manner the spectator had to enter the tent to see the names indicates closeness and emphasises the emotional connection formed by sleeping next to one other rather than sexual conquest. A warehouse fire in 2004 damaged several works, including this one.

My Bed

1999

Emin’s work is a chronicle of several days spent in bed, bedridden with despair. The linens are soiled and the bed is unmade. Condoms, contraceptive pills, underwear soiled with menstrual blood, money, and cigarette ends are strewn all over the place. This is her actual bed, which she was forced to use when a personal relationship ended. “I got up and took a bath and looked at the bed and thought, ‘Christ, I made that’.” she remarked in an interview at the time. This is not a sculpture created by the artist’s hands; rather, it is more comparable to the Duchampian readymade, which may be defined as art created by a selection of things.

You Forgot to Kiss my Soul

2007

Emin began experimenting with neon lighting in the 2000s. These works include words and phrases, but instead of the block capitals seen in classic neon works by artists like Bruce Nauman, they are written in Emin’s unique handwriting, giving them a personal touch that contrasts with neon’s mass-produced look. “neon is emotional for everybody.” Emin has stated. She said, “Because neon and argon gases make humans feel good, they’re used at amusement parks, casinos, red-light districts, and bars. It’s also a feel-good element because of the way it electronically pulsates around the glass. People who are depressed may benefit from neon.”

BULLET POINTED (SUMMARISED)

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Tracey Emin is known as the “bad girl of British art” because of her raunchy public appearances and self-righteous paintings, both of which run against to cultural standards and prior ideas of femininity in England.
Her profoundly intimate and candid artwork, which she promotes through her notoriety and usage of the popular media, is her most well-known work.

Unreported rape, public humiliation, misogyny, botched abortions, drunkenness, and promiscuity have all been subjects in her work.
From the critique of expressionism to the politics of female representation, the quality of Emin’s work is frequently disputed.
Her work is sometimes described to as confessional since it is based on her own personal background.

In self-portraits and performances, she has used her own body as a medium.
Her works use the therapeutic and spiritual aspects of art to execute self-mapping and self-commemoration.
Emin’s celebrity stemmed from journalistic speculation rather than critical debate about her work, and her character is her own kind of unabashed creative commodity that defied societal conventions (particularly British norms).

Her work incorporates society reaction; she invites criticism, even if it comes in the form of gossip tabloids.
Despite her denial that her work serves a feminist greater good, her courage to be vulnerable and honest in her work blurs the line between life and art, highlighting the disparities between men and women’s ability to critically and publicly engage with topics like alcoholism, gender roles, and, most controversially, sex.