Part of me thought I was going to be too late to the Tracey Emin Second Life at Tate Modern party, but according to the crowd around me on a Monday afternoon, there is a constant celebration of the Dame happening in London. I always knew of Emin to be a challenging conceptual artist in some ways, work that was so singular and eponymous that, even though I know she is beloved and popular, I was curious of the crowds and the context of the work in Second Life. It’s a blockbuster but I’m always interested in blockbusters, what people expect, what they go to see, and really, there is no other way to put this: they are going to see the brutal honesty of Tracey Emin, herself.
The work is autobiographical and that doesn’t do it justice. She is the work, the work is her. And I really want you to think about this: is there another artist making work over the last three to four decades that is more embedded in her creative output than Emin? It’s about the body of a woman but so specifically her body. It’s about the art of confession but it’s her confessions, her transparency, her pain, her struggle, her understanding of herself and what it means to understand desire and shame. My Bed may be the star of the show, but it was her video pieces that really stunned and moved me, the rawness, the truth, the nakedness.
But that is what makes Emin such a fascinating and endlessly relevant artist. She has an ability to give herself to the world, to share the most inner-spirit of herself, that many of us couldn’t even dare to share. She is a artist of the self. She is the system and a sun. The neons are poems that linger overhead, the inner-working of her mind, the paintings experimental in self-portraiture, the photos a powerful and vulnerable exploration of age, the installations time capsules to a life that was.
Ultimately, Emin's gravitational force as both subject and creator proves inescapable. Like planets locked in orbit, every piece—every bed, every tent, every neon confession—revolves around her singular presence. This isn't narcissism but necessity: Emin has created an artistic universe where authenticity can only exist in relation to her own unflinching self-examination. —Evan Pricco
