Tracey Emin

Love Is What You Want

Tracey Emin’s latest retrospective exhibition at the Hayward Gallery is alluring and eccentric. Everything displayed over three floors is very personal: Emin’s subject matter is her life. She engages viewers with an intriguing insight to her childhood and sex life, including intimate details of rape and abortion. She is a natural storyteller.

Emin is one of Britain’s most successful and controversial artists, known for her explicit style. But it is the way Emin expresses her thoughts and stories through a variety of mediums that makes her work stand out. Firstly it is the precious insight into an artist’s life you would never expect to encounter in a gallery. Frank, even sweet, are her memories on film, sculpture, installation, drawings, and photographs. Not to forget the upholstered armchair inherited from her grandma that travelled with Emin to America.

Spotlights are on her personal memories of incidents expressed through a variety of mediums and handwritten text. Many viewers, particularly women relate to her because of the personal experiences she has had. The misspelling is part of her body of work. Its continuous flow of communication reflects her thoughts about herself, which are pure, beautiful and often harsh.

Slogans like ‘FUCK SCHOOL WHY GO SOMEWHERE EVERYDAY TO BE TOLD YOU ARE LATE’ are mapped on vivid patchworks displayed on the wall.  The blankets are huge storyboards where she, the narrator, draws viewers in to the adventure land. This is just the beginning. The wooden installation of beach hut is homage to her father. It could have a background of seaside but the exhibition is a vivid wonderland already. Instead, I imagine it on England’s coastline with warm wind whistling by.

The neon room is a step closer to her love life. This is the murky space where viewers feel a closer connection, as the main slogan says – love is what you want. It is honest and catchy and as Emin puts it: ‘it has to be specific’. This room is definitely my favourite; a nightclub vibe.

Her provocative drawing style reflects Egon Schiele’s continuous line, which gives the artwork a fragile character. The subject matter in her drawings revolves around female sexuality, sex and genitals.

I leave the gallery with poignant feelings. The journey the viewer experiences are emotional and rewarding; Emin is optimistic about her disturbing life experiences.

Love may be what she wanted. It was not always what she got. What I got from her work are images I will never lose.


Showing from 18 May – 29 August 2011 @ Hayward Gallery, London

Image credits:

http://www.bobbink.nl/2011/06/12/love-is-what-you-want/