Tracey Emin

[00:00:10] Welcome back to Exhibitionistas. So glad that you're with us for this very special episode where we're diving back into exhibitions, this time with Tracey Emin's show, I Followed You to the End. That's at White Cube Bermondsey until the 10th of November. So if you find yourself in London, I highly recommend going and giving this extraordinary show a visit. And this was a great conversation. I have to say, you know, I, for better or worse, certainly worse, I did not

[00:00:40] know a ton about this hugely powerful voice in the art world that is Tracey Emin. And it was such a pleasure to learn more about her incredible life, how much she has to give to the art world and beyond. And it was, it was just a fascinating episode for me personally, and I hope that you enjoy it too. And of course, as ever talking to Joanna about it was, was great fun. So I want to flag up at the

[00:01:10] up front that there's some references to rape, to abortion. So if you're not in the mood for that kind of thing, you're with someone who might not, you know, find that appropriate. Just wanted to give you a heads up. And also, in other news, we have started a Patreon account. So you can find in the show notes a link to it. And come join us. We are so happy to have you along. And if you're able to give us five bob, as they say,

[00:01:40] in the UK, that would be enormously appreciated. Obviously, if that's not available to you right now, that's not a problem. But we would very, very wholeheartedly welcome the any donations or contributions you can give to the show. Without further ado, I hope you enjoy the episode.

[00:02:20] Hello, exhibitionistas. Welcome back to the podcast. This is the second episode of the season, but the first where we're diving back into an exhibition and an artist to discuss with each other and of course with you. So this episode will examine the exhibition,

[00:02:38] I followed you to the end, a big body of paintings and sculpture by Dame Tracy Immen. My name is Emily Harding. And much like you, I assume I am an art lover and an exhibition goer.

[00:02:52] I am Joanna Pierre-Neves, independent writer and curator and artistic director of Drawing Now Art Fair. I am writing a book titled Female Drawing Machines about drawing and technology from a feminist perspective.

[00:03:05] And I'm your co-host today. And I'm really, really looking forward to talking about the show and to being back at a time when we need culture more than ever.

[00:03:17] I'm not one of those people who question art when the going gets tough. On the contrary, I'm working with a Lebanese artist.

[00:03:24] And we started talking about the escalation in the Middle East, getting really despondent about it.

[00:03:30] And suddenly she pointed to her artistic work and said, I'm so glad I have this.

[00:03:37] And I guess, you know, my week confirmed what you said in the first episode, Emily, about the healing power of art.

[00:03:44] It does have that power and it brings us together.

[00:03:49] So how has your week been?

[00:03:52] Yeah, it's been good. And I mean, just to go back to that.

[00:03:55] So she said, I'm so glad I have this and others are so glad she has it as well.

[00:04:01] That's the thing about art is like that ability to connect for so many people, not just the people who are creating it, which is wonderful.

[00:04:10] But so I'm glad you brought up that healing because I think this exhibition is right in that sweet spot.

[00:04:18] I mean, for Emin, this exhibition reflects on how she's living her life following her cancer diagnosis from 2020, which no one, even her doctors apparently expected her to survive.

[00:04:31] But it also brought up a lot of feelings about my own health, which we can talk about later on when we talk about the exhibition.

[00:04:40] It felt really personal looking at the work she produced for this.

[00:04:45] So I love that serendipity and how you can experience things just at the right time.

[00:04:50] But my week, I mean, it was great.

[00:04:52] Actually, I dipped my toes back into the work for the first time in several weeks.

[00:04:57] So it's, you know, very much easing my way in in a slow way.

[00:05:01] But it felt great to start to piece back a more normal routine.

[00:05:07] So I'm taking it slow and it felt difficult for sure, but the right kind of difficult.

[00:05:13] And, you know, just kind of reaching out to feel the edges of capacity, which is good.

[00:05:20] But yeah, so how was your week, Joanna?

[00:05:22] I went to the drawing room where they have this impressive exhibition by Emma McNally, whose drawings on paper form a sort of grotto.

[00:05:31] You are even given a flashlight to explore it.

[00:05:34] It's very surprising.

[00:05:36] Yeah, it was really, really nice.

[00:05:38] Very good.

[00:05:38] So like a really good season start for the for the drawing room.

[00:05:43] And I'm also reading New Abysses to Have and to Be Had, which is a series of essays stringed together to form a sort of narrative.

[00:05:52] About money, property and status.

[00:05:55] And she makes it very, very cool, actually.

[00:05:58] I thought this is not for me.

[00:06:00] These are not the themes that draw me to any book.

[00:06:03] Yeah.

[00:06:03] But yeah.

[00:06:04] Is it current?

[00:06:06] She's a current writer or is this something that's written?

[00:06:09] She is.

[00:06:09] She's an essayist.

[00:06:11] And this I can't remember the date of the book.

[00:06:14] But she's, yeah, she's she's someone who's been around in the last, I don't know, 10, 15 years, I think.

[00:06:20] I don't know how I got to her.

[00:06:22] Oh, it's because I'm working with an artist called Danica Phelps, who I'm going to include in an exhibition about notation.

[00:06:30] So the idea of like the codes that we invent when language is not enough, like notations in music, notations in dance, and how that kind of cross references with drawing.

[00:06:41] And so Danica Phelps is a really interesting American artist whose work has always been about quantifying the input and output of money in her life.

[00:06:54] And she found codes to put into her drawings that mark that flow, that cash flow in and out of her life.

[00:07:07] It's really interesting.

[00:07:08] And she has a series of drawings where she did a trip with her son, I think, or her offspring.

[00:07:15] And it's just drawings of the child doing stuff.

[00:07:20] And then at the bottom, I think she went to the Grand Canyon.

[00:07:25] She was traveling across America.

[00:07:26] And so she has a color for each aspect of money spending.

[00:07:34] But she drew them in a way that it's not charts.

[00:07:37] It's kind of like a landscape.

[00:07:39] So it's like lines and over lines of lines that form these hills and these landscapes at the bottom of the drawings.

[00:07:46] And at the same time, it just made me think, wow, that really is what parenting is, isn't it?

[00:07:51] You're doing the best for your child.

[00:07:53] You're traveling.

[00:07:55] But you have, you carry that responsibility of providing.

[00:07:59] And at the same time, providing becomes an act of love and an act of sustainability for that, you know, very small person's life.

[00:08:08] It's beautiful work.

[00:08:09] And she is, she made, so in the States, not the book I have, unfortunately, in the States, she did the cover of that book.

[00:08:18] And we were talking on Zoom.

[00:08:20] And she said, oh, by the way, you know, I, one of these drawings was used as a cover of a book.

[00:08:26] And that's how I got to the book.

[00:08:27] And then she started talking about it.

[00:08:29] And I thought, huh, that might be interesting.

[00:08:32] Actually, I'm completely hooked.

[00:08:33] Yeah, I'm in it.

[00:08:34] How about you?

[00:08:35] What are you, what are you doing?

[00:08:36] My main obsession has been this podcast.

[00:08:39] I just discovered that it's been around a little while.

[00:08:42] It's called One Song with Diallo, Riddle and Luxury.

[00:08:46] So they are DJs and musicologists.

[00:08:50] They're kind of in the business.

[00:08:52] And they discuss the work of an artist through one song.

[00:08:57] So I got to say, there's something in the format that speaks to me, Joanna.

[00:09:03] It sounds familiar.

[00:09:04] Yeah, like something I'd really like to do.

[00:09:07] But yeah, it's great.

[00:09:09] Because like a lot of music, like a lot of art podcasts, as you've talked about before,

[00:09:15] a lot of art podcasts are interviews with artists, which are great.

[00:09:21] And a lot of music podcasts are interviews with artists, which are also great.

[00:09:27] I really enjoy their song exploder and, you know, where they go into how an artist sort

[00:09:33] of made a song.

[00:09:35] How did it all come together for them?

[00:09:36] But this is a bit different in that, you know, it's two people who are just fanatical about

[00:09:42] music and really, really knowledgeable.

[00:09:44] And they go into a song and they talk about the artist, their body of work, and then they

[00:09:53] have actual stems.

[00:09:55] So like they'll take out the rhythm section or just the bass line or the vocals.

[00:10:03] And you'll hear that on its own.

[00:10:06] And I guarantee you, for songs you have heard a million times, there are things you could

[00:10:13] not have known were in there.

[00:10:15] That just like give it this depth and resonance that you wouldn't have, you know, wouldn't

[00:10:22] have expected in a lot of cases anyway.

[00:10:24] So they did this episode on Heart.

[00:10:31] I mean, I love Mason Ann and Nancy Wilson.

[00:10:34] And they broke down Barracuda and it is a delight.

[00:10:38] If you like music podcasts, the other one I would recommend is, you know, Add to Playlist,

[00:10:45] which is a great one.

[00:10:46] It's a BBC one where they start with a song and then there's a couple of hosts and they

[00:10:52] bring in a couple of guests.

[00:10:53] And then they say, oh, you know what that song made me think of is this other song.

[00:10:58] And sometimes it's something, you know, related, you know, that seems maybe natural, like a

[00:11:05] natural leap.

[00:11:06] But often it is very different.

[00:11:08] You know, they might say, oh, well, this kind of the folk lyrics of this rock song made

[00:11:14] me think of a Welsh folk tune.

[00:11:17] And then they'll be talking about, you know, and then you'll get introduced to artists and

[00:11:23] genres that you would have never kind of fallen on otherwise.

[00:11:27] But that's another great one.

[00:11:29] But yeah, one song is so good.

[00:11:31] And I just I love how, you know, musically geeky these guys are.

[00:11:37] I mean, they're just so deep in it and just love to share the joy, which is the perfect

[00:11:42] combination.

[00:11:43] Yeah, it's very communicative and it's very much what we are about as well.

[00:11:49] Like I really felt like a sort of a connection there.

[00:11:52] Yeah, that's really nice.

[00:11:54] Yeah.

[00:11:54] A power duo just like us.

[00:11:56] So power duo just like us.

[00:11:59] So having said all this, do you want to introduce the artist and the exhibition?

[00:12:04] I would love to.

[00:12:08] Yeah.

[00:12:08] So Dame Tracey Emin was born in 1963 in London.

[00:12:13] You've heard of her, of course.

[00:12:14] Everyone has heard of her.

[00:12:16] She is one of the most powerful artists that have come out of the UK.

[00:12:20] She is known for installations, most notably a couple of pieces of work, which are everyone

[00:12:28] I've ever slept with 1963 to 1995, which is a piece that she did in 1995.

[00:12:35] And My Bed, which was an installation that she did in 1998, nominated for the Turner Prize.

[00:12:41] She didn't get it, but it was all the all the buzz at the time.

[00:12:45] And so she also worked in video, printing, drawing, painting, sculpture.

[00:12:53] She has an immense body of work that has this common thread of being deeply personal, confessional

[00:13:00] and very, very intimate.

[00:13:02] So something this is something that she got critiqued for, which we'll talk a little bit

[00:13:07] about.

[00:13:07] But that intimacy is so essential to her work.

[00:13:10] And yeah, really, really powerful.

[00:13:14] So there's an immense amount of information on Emin out there.

[00:13:18] So you can't be a very personal, very confessional artist without there being quite a bit out

[00:13:25] there on you.

[00:13:26] And she, you know, has been, you know, she does a lot of interviews.

[00:13:30] She's, you know, accessible as an artist, which is wonderful.

[00:13:33] So that's just to say that there's, you know, a wonderful hole to fall into on the internet

[00:13:40] that is all about Tracy Emin.

[00:13:42] As I dug into research, I read Jonathan Jones's book, Tracy Emin, and then read Strangeland,

[00:13:49] which is a 2005 autobiography from Tracy Emin.

[00:13:54] I mean, spoiler here.

[00:13:56] She can write really well too.

[00:13:58] So yeah.

[00:14:00] So I listened.

[00:14:00] There's loads of podcasts out there and loads of videos available on YouTube from the BBC,

[00:14:05] White Cube and others, including a Channel 4 program that is called Is Painting Dead

[00:14:10] from 1997.

[00:14:12] Oh, I wondered if you got to that.

[00:14:14] We have to talk about that.

[00:14:16] Oh my God.

[00:14:16] Yes.

[00:14:17] Yes.

[00:14:18] Because it's like, you know, she was, she was known in the art world absolutely in the

[00:14:24] 90s.

[00:14:24] But this 1997 appearance on the show is why the culture started to know her, you know,

[00:14:31] in sort of a broader public.

[00:14:33] It brought her, you know, just huge exposure for non-artistic reasons that we can discuss.

[00:14:40] That we will talk about.

[00:14:41] Yeah.

[00:14:42] Yeah.

[00:14:43] If I may interject, I was thinking while preparing this episode that she's the counter example

[00:14:48] of what I keep saying about contemporary artists, which is that you can't find anything

[00:14:53] about them online or in articles.

[00:14:55] Because there has been a love-hate affair between Tracy Emin and the press, TV and social media

[00:15:01] in this country that is quite unusual.

[00:15:04] And which has not always been very good for her mental health, I am sure.

[00:15:09] But, you know, good for us, I guess.

[00:15:10] I mean, you can find a wealth of things online about her with her.

[00:15:17] It's incredible.

[00:15:18] And she's one of the very few artists that you can really, really do research on.

[00:15:22] And who has a voice and who's been talked about in sometimes really interesting ways

[00:15:28] and sometimes really diminishing and crushing ways.

[00:15:31] But yeah, we'll talk about all that.

[00:15:33] Yeah.

[00:15:34] Later on.

[00:15:34] For sure.

[00:15:35] Totally.

[00:15:36] Totally.

[00:15:36] And I mean, I just didn't know a ton about her before the bed.

[00:15:40] Like the bed was somewhere in my consciousness.

[00:15:44] And then her neon sculptures.

[00:15:46] I mean, I'm at St. Pancras occasionally and she had a big one there.

[00:15:50] Ignorantly, I would have put her in the category of sensationalist artist.

[00:15:55] I don't know, you know, is there a lot of there there?

[00:15:58] I never.

[00:15:59] It's really interesting that you were aware of her, but you didn't quite.

[00:16:04] I think she's one of the most unknown known artists in the UK.

[00:16:10] Because you think you know her.

[00:16:12] But you don't really.

[00:16:13] And she's painted all her life, actually.

[00:16:15] Yeah, exactly.

[00:16:16] Totally.

[00:16:17] And I mean, and I think that's what was such a pleasure about, about researching or even,

[00:16:24] even her voice.

[00:16:25] When I listened to the first interview podcast that I listened to, I wasn't expecting a non-posh

[00:16:31] voice.

[00:16:32] You know, I mean, I didn't know.

[00:16:34] Oh, so oh my goodness.

[00:16:35] Yeah.

[00:16:36] You were in it for a ride then.

[00:16:37] Yeah, totally.

[00:16:39] And, and I, and I was like, oh, wow.

[00:16:42] She's, you know, cause I mean, there's such a thing with accents in this country.

[00:16:45] You know, Mayor Kahn having, you know, South London accent as a political official on his

[00:16:53] level has been noted many times, you know?

[00:16:56] And, and so, yeah.

[00:16:57] So it's like, I heard the sound of her voice and I was like, oh, wow.

[00:16:59] I didn't expect that.

[00:17:01] So it has been a pleasure and a real great surprise to sort of investigate what a complex, fascinating

[00:17:09] character she is for sure.

[00:17:10] And so for our non-UK listeners, so this idea of accents is that accents in the UK really

[00:17:17] show where you come from.

[00:17:19] So if you have a very Downton Abbey accent, you are posh, you are well off, you are part

[00:17:24] of the right side of society.

[00:17:26] And if you have Tracy Emmons accent, you come from working class.

[00:17:32] So there's a working class accent that's very, very particular, very specific.

[00:17:37] There are many of them.

[00:17:39] And sometimes other accents like the Northern accent are associated with working class people

[00:17:44] where maybe that's my ignorance as a foreigner, but that, that's not quite right.

[00:17:50] So that it's very difficult to penetrate these accents and the classism in the UK.

[00:17:55] I'm still trying to figure it out.

[00:17:56] So I will not pretend to explain it bit by bit to you, non-UK listener.

[00:18:01] But there definitely is something about the way she speaks and her directedness.

[00:18:09] And there's not a single podcast with her that doesn't have a fuck or a fucking in the middle

[00:18:15] there, you know, and she's, she's so at ease with the way she speaks.

[00:18:20] That is quite strange and unusual here in the UK in the art scene.

[00:18:25] So just to explain what we're talking about for those of you who are kind of finding out about her

[00:18:31] and to be very honest with you, we both found out more about her during this episode.

[00:18:37] I myself, even, even though I knew more about her, ended up discovering much more things about her

[00:18:43] that I didn't know.

[00:18:45] And that's why we do this.

[00:18:46] This was also a pleasure for me to be very honest and, and kind of allowed me to revisit these things.

[00:18:52] And, and this aspect, because I was at university when this all happened in the nineties,

[00:18:57] when she came about.

[00:18:59] So I kind of thought I knew things that I didn't quite know as usual.

[00:19:04] Yeah.

[00:19:05] It's the beauty of it.

[00:19:06] So as I said, Emin was born in London, but she grew up in Margate, which is a seaside holiday town

[00:19:11] in Kent on the coast where her father, who is a Turkish Cypriot immigrant, owned a hotel

[00:19:19] and some other properties.

[00:19:20] Her family was pretty well off at that point.

[00:19:25] So they weren't wealthy, but there weren't money problems per se.

[00:19:30] And her parents by most standards had a pretty unusual relationship insofar as her father was

[00:19:38] married to and had children with another woman and was not willing to get a divorce.

[00:19:45] So, yeah, yeah.

[00:19:47] He married, he married, uh, another woman.

[00:19:50] Well, I mean, she was pretty young when they got married.

[00:19:54] I want to say she was still a teenager.

[00:19:56] His, his first wife, but it was a woman in his village in Cyprus who was married back home.

[00:20:06] Exactly.

[00:20:07] Yeah.

[00:20:08] Yeah.

[00:20:08] And then he came, well, she was, the wife came with him to the UK, the first wife.

[00:20:18] So was living also in Margate.

[00:20:21] Um, yeah.

[00:20:22] Yeah.

[00:20:22] And then he, Tracy's father got with Tracy's mother and they had twins, Tracy and, uh, and

[00:20:33] her brother.

[00:20:34] And they made an agreement that was, look, the best, you know, the best that Tracy's mom

[00:20:41] was going to get was three days a week.

[00:20:43] And that was the agreement that they came to.

[00:20:45] So it was, it sounds like it was.

[00:20:47] Wait, so he lived with the other, he lived with the other family at the same time.

[00:20:51] Yeah.

[00:20:52] Like half week.

[00:20:52] So that's a complex situation to be in for sure.

[00:20:57] Yeah.

[00:20:57] Especially at that time.

[00:20:58] She was born in the sixties.

[00:21:00] Right.

[00:21:00] And I mean, I don't know, you know, who knows how well Tracy's mom was with the situation.

[00:21:07] I mean, but it seemed to, you know, it seemed to work and Tracy's mom changed her last name

[00:21:12] to Emin for that period of time that they were together.

[00:21:15] But then unfortunately her father went bankrupt, lost the hotel and left the country.

[00:21:23] So that was a pretty traumatic pivot point in her life.

[00:21:27] And that's when, you know, the financial picture really disintegrated and her mom had to work

[00:21:34] several jobs in hotels that she was once helped running because Tracy's father owned them.

[00:21:42] And so this thrust Tracy, her twin brother, Paul, and her older brother, Alan into poverty.

[00:21:49] And, you know, she, she talks a lot about how difficult that was.

[00:21:56] And so now it's like her father isn't around.

[00:21:59] Her mom essentially isn't around because she's having to work so much.

[00:22:04] And she's barely.

[00:22:05] 500 jobs at the same time.

[00:22:07] Yeah, exactly.

[00:22:07] There was some squatting.

[00:22:09] There was a lot of, you know, housing insecurity and, and all that kind of stuff.

[00:22:13] And so this was a big shift for her and she will come back to this kind of again and again

[00:22:22] in her work, you know, as, as her work is autobiographical and Margate, you know, Margate

[00:22:28] in and of itself has made a huge mark on her.

[00:22:31] I mean, she's since moved back there, but the, the Margate influence is certainly most clear

[00:22:37] in some of the films she made in the late nineties.

[00:22:40] So as I said, she's since moved back after spending lots of her life in London and she

[00:22:45] started a residency.

[00:22:47] I found it surprising to know how much she loved and appreciated her father, even after he would,

[00:22:54] she was clearly really heartbroken by his actions and his departure.

[00:22:59] And they ended up having, you know, a relationship in her life when she got older.

[00:23:05] And I mean, I'm sure there's...

[00:23:08] Yeah.

[00:23:09] Yeah.

[00:23:09] So she spent some time...

[00:23:10] So he never came back to the UK?

[00:23:12] Did he come back to the UK?

[00:23:14] No.

[00:23:14] She has a relationship with him over there in Cyprus.

[00:23:18] Yeah.

[00:23:19] So she spent some time in the eighties there when she was in her twenties.

[00:23:23] They seem to have a real kinship.

[00:23:26] You know, they seem to be very similar people in a way, kind of real storytellers.

[00:23:31] And, you know, obviously Tracy Emin is nothing if not wildly independent.

[00:23:37] And you get the sense that her father is the same.

[00:23:41] I mean, think about it.

[00:23:42] He's an immigrant coming to this country.

[00:23:45] He was planning on going to Australia.

[00:23:47] And then he found out about no non-whites policy.

[00:23:51] And so stayed in the UK.

[00:23:54] And then, you know, has this, you know, this two-wife thing going on.

[00:24:00] You know, I mean, I think that's...

[00:24:03] You know...

[00:24:03] It takes some gumption to kind of just openly say, listen, this is who I am.

[00:24:08] Take me or leave me.

[00:24:09] Have kids with me or don't.

[00:24:12] And that's how it's going to be.

[00:24:13] Especially as an immigrant, I would say.

[00:24:16] You know, I mean...

[00:24:16] As an immigrant.

[00:24:17] As a non-white.

[00:24:18] She'd mentioned that her father's first wife was a lovely woman.

[00:24:23] And was like, look, the children are not to blame for all of this mess that the adults had sort of waded into with all of this.

[00:24:33] And, you know, yeah, I think that's a remarkable thing as well.

[00:24:37] For that kind of grace to be afforded in a situation like that.

[00:24:42] There's another aspect to her life that is quite complex as well, right?

[00:24:46] Which is pertaining to her sexuality.

[00:24:49] Totally.

[00:24:50] Yeah.

[00:24:50] So sex is a big part of her work in all of its guises.

[00:24:57] And she has experienced rape and sexual assaults and abortions as well as lots of other sexual experiences.

[00:25:04] And she is all in for exploring these and expressing her relationship to these things throughout her work.

[00:25:11] So it's a major, major theme.

[00:25:13] And she's not at pains to say that she did this very early on, pre, pre, pre, pre Me Too, when no one was talking.

[00:25:24] Oh, I mean, Marlene Dumas talked about it.

[00:25:26] I mean, no one was talking about it in a way that made them part of the subject.

[00:25:35] You know, a lot of people would have been talking about it as representing it.

[00:25:40] But she was talking about it from her own perspective in order to connect with women who had gone through the same thing.

[00:25:49] And she's very clear about it.

[00:25:52] And she states very clearly, I've always done this.

[00:25:55] I've always been persecuted for doing it.

[00:25:58] And now the times are catching up with me.

[00:26:00] Her body and its pain and ecstasy and just plain humidness have always been depicted in her work or paintings, photographs.

[00:26:08] And really powerfully in sculpture, which there's a couple of examples of in the show.

[00:26:14] In the show.

[00:26:16] Yeah.

[00:26:16] Wow, wow, wow.

[00:26:17] So she shares herself.

[00:26:20] And, you know, when she's at her most vulnerable, I mean, menstruating, masturbating, without holding back at all from any of it, but also with a whole heap of pathos.

[00:26:32] And it's like, you know, when you look at Egon Sheila, who was a huge influence on her and her work, and that is abundantly clear in the show as well, I thought.

[00:26:43] Mm-hmm.

[00:27:13] And he's a activist.

[00:27:13] And he was a student who really, really opened my eyes to Egon Sheila's history.

[00:27:18] And also the Vienna circle at the time, there was a lot of teenage abuse.

[00:27:24] I mean, artists abusing teenagers.

[00:27:27] And Egon Sheila was one of them.

[00:27:31] He kidnapped a kid, for Christ's sakes.

[00:27:34] You know, he kidnapped a little girl.

[00:27:37] So he disappeared with her for a few days.

[00:27:39] she was the child of a powerful magnate or a powerful man where he was saying and was a whole

[00:27:47] thing so in some ways when i look at her work and i see that she was influenced by it it makes

[00:27:53] complete sense because it's suddenly she is that kind of person when suddenly of course she may have

[00:28:00] been influenced by his artistry and his technique but also it's as if one of his models which were

[00:28:09] basically little girls who were living in the streets and he would bring them into his studio

[00:28:15] and do whatever he wanted with them in exchange of some food and some warmth uh i mean literally heat

[00:28:22] you know they were freezing in the street and it's as if these girls suddenly started speaking

[00:28:29] through tracy emmon oh wow so sometimes when artists say they're influenced by egan shealy i'm like oh

[00:28:35] that's so annoying because he is such a powerful artist but at the same time when you really look

[00:28:40] at the drawings those girls are not comfortable he's overarching you know he's always painting them

[00:28:46] from above or drawing them but actually with tracy emmon it makes a lot of sense especially with her

[00:28:52] relationship with the openness of the the the the sort of harm that her that may have caused

[00:29:01] two families but also the love he may have brought to them and the complexity of these issues uh she

[00:29:08] speaks about them from within and i think that's also what's so powerful in this relationship with

[00:29:14] egan shealy that she definitely has you know and a lot of artists do but with her it makes so much sense

[00:29:20] you know yeah totally and i mean i think it's it's you know her relationship maybe to her father but

[00:29:26] also to you know she talks a lot about the men that she had sex with you know when she was a teenager

[00:29:33] and they were like 25 30 and she's like who are these men like you know i was i i was out there she

[00:29:42] dropped out of school at 13 she had some time on her hands and you know she was having you know she was

[00:29:51] raped at that time in an alley and she started you know becoming sexually active which is not uncommon

[00:30:00] and so for her it's one thing but it's like you know these men should have known better and what was it

[00:30:07] like why are they having sex with a teenage girl and yeah why is egon sheila kidnapping

[00:30:15] you know i mean there's a little girl yeah here's some meat yeah just yeah i don't know she does say

[00:30:22] to put it into context that a lot of her so she was fascinated with art when she was a kid

[00:30:29] that's something that has always been with her she's like a true artist in the sense of um having been

[00:30:37] really comforted by art and by her drawing she drew and wrote a lot ever since she was a a little girl

[00:30:45] and she says that she looked around at some point and 13 14 15 year olds um girls were pregnant

[00:30:53] were in relationships with men probably older than them or a bit older like 18 19 20

[00:31:02] and she said i don't want this for myself like this is not for me i don't want to go through this

[00:31:08] so there was an awareness i i guess of that time and that place and she talks about margate with a lot

[00:31:17] of warmth and a lot of tenderness but also realizing that it was one of the poorest parts of the country

[00:31:22] at the time it still is a complex space um and there was um the mores there were these and that

[00:31:33] was the norm as well at the time and it was also the norm to make fun of a woman menstruating like

[00:31:40] she's from that generation that we lived as well i mean even though we're a bit younger uh where

[00:31:46] you know it was shameful everything related to women was shameful so she's she's a real

[00:31:52] trooper for us absolutely and i have to say you know looking at the you know the drawings of herself

[00:32:01] and the paintings of herself and all of it you know i wonder if i were to draw myself at the lowest

[00:32:09] times of my life and the most intimate could i be as honest and empathetic i mean i just i think

[00:32:18] that's a feat that's a real feat to have you know a very harsh light on the thing but also have it be

[00:32:27] held with the pathos that she has it held in i mean that's that's really really something to behold

[00:32:35] so there's a story about her where she realized that she wasn't the skinny pretty thing uh

[00:32:44] she had been before and she was invited to do a show in new york in the at the end of the 90s

[00:32:51] uh and she was really depressed with her body so like a very common female experience male too

[00:32:58] obviously non-binary too for sure uh but let's say the weight of the 90s skinniness was weighing on her

[00:33:07] and so she was disgusted by her body and she thought you know what am i to do and then she had this

[00:33:15] invitation for this show so she built a sort of a box where she was to live for i think three weeks so

[00:33:22] between two menstruations because she didn't want to menstruate during that period because she was naked

[00:33:29] so she was naked the whole time there were some peepholes so people could look into

[00:33:34] the the space she was living in and to cut a very long story short because i think we could do an

[00:33:40] episode just on that piece she spent the first days reading the guardian so she was delivered the

[00:33:47] guardian so she was hiding behind the newspaper because she couldn't live with her self-image and

[00:33:54] knowing that people would be looking at her body and she said that at the end of that period

[00:33:59] she felt so free she felt completely in tune with herself and her body and and that was her and it

[00:34:08] was the acceptance of maybe a body she didn't love as much or society didn't love as much but it was her

[00:34:14] own body and that's i mean listen that's crazy right to do such a thing to just go like okay i have this

[00:34:22] problem how am i to solve this and it is always through art and it's always through a sort of

[00:34:28] communitarian situation so that's kind of and she yeah she hadn't she hadn't painted in five years

[00:34:36] at that point as well so she wanted to reconnect with herself as a painter and that was part of

[00:34:43] the true exactly for this and so they have redone that room as an installation in various exhibitions as

[00:34:54] well thank you emily for pointing out that it was a return to painting and that's really interesting

[00:35:00] that she was naked painting for the first time in five years and relating to her own body and also

[00:35:07] giving that to the public i think it makes a lot of sense when you see the exhibition now in white cube

[00:35:13] and bermondsey so as we said she dropped out of school as a teenager uh but she still sought art education

[00:35:21] throughout the 80s she went to medway college of design maidstone college of art and the royal college

[00:35:26] of art she had her first yeah i mean she was basically studying all of the 80s in one place or another

[00:35:36] and so she was you know totally throwing herself into it getting into the scene you know i mean you know

[00:35:44] just a really voracious appetite i mean she was you know she was not uh half in half out ah maybe i'll

[00:35:53] just see you know you get the sense that she was just really throwing it all on the table and yes you

[00:35:59] know got a first class degree and in printing and i mean so she was she was very very much in it and then

[00:36:05] she had her first solo show at the white cube in 1993 and it was called my major retrospective which i

[00:36:15] love because i mean so so 1993 is also the year uh of the founding of the white cube the title my uh

[00:36:25] my major retrospective this reference the fact that emin didn't believe that she was a new artist and she

[00:36:33] talks about this in interviews she was like they call us the yba but like we were in our i was in my

[00:36:39] late 30s and it's a bit sad i mean we haven't talked about the the alcohol issue she had um she was a heavy

[00:36:47] drinker to say the least and she had a reputation for that and she was a woman and she was pretty she was

[00:36:54] young-ish um and she is interesting because in the interviews of those days and even after

[00:37:02] 2000s she says many times do you know i went to art school like i went to art school i spent many years

[00:37:10] educating myself and i she even did a philosophy degree which she loved she was very very into it

[00:37:17] and she has to keep reminding people because people don't take her seriously so my major retrospective

[00:37:25] is also like guys i know what i'm doing it's intentional but do you want to do you want to

[00:37:32] say a bit more about the yba young british artists and just kind of that time

[00:37:39] sure i mean again like i said i was at university at the time so i i came into this profession and into

[00:37:47] this field hearing about the past like the very recent past of the yba and i didn't even know what it

[00:37:54] stood for you know yba but it just means young british artists who are actually still around no

[00:38:00] longer that young um and their work were was on display as part of the sachie collection at the

[00:38:08] royal academy of london in the exhibition sensation in 1997 so after you know this show that you just

[00:38:16] mentioned um that's when the yba took on an international aura and made a sort of a big splash

[00:38:23] in the art world so artists such as matt collishaw damian hirst julian waring sarah lucas just had a

[00:38:31] retrospective at uh take britain marcus harvey with the infamous portrait myra which was of the child

[00:38:39] sex abuser and killer myra hindley um and it was made with imprints of children's hands dipped in gray

[00:38:45] white and black paint um so that was kind of one of the major focuses of the exhibition for the press

[00:38:51] and for the general public there was michael landy i mean lots of artists that are now established um

[00:38:58] were parts of this exhibition and so what kind of changed in this um young generation

[00:39:07] is that they used they were very free with their materials even the painters as i mentioned with

[00:39:16] marcus harvey and they used the literal thing that they were talking about so the work would talk about

[00:39:24] something and they would take the thing to make the work or the material so for instance an artist such

[00:39:32] as mark quinn did a self-portrait which was a cast of his own face but it was made up with 10 pints of

[00:39:39] his own blood frozen in silicon and in the same vein yeah that's kind of i have my legs go really

[00:39:48] really numb when i talk about this oh blood is just uh it's a whole thing then we'll talk about it

[00:39:54] uh later on so in the same vein eman's work at the time used her own life and intimacy to frame the

[00:40:01] vulnerability of women in society damien hirst placed animals in formaldehyde tanks for instance

[00:40:08] and of course you know marcus um harvey's portrait of myer hindley that i've just mentioned so in some

[00:40:15] ways they brought real life into the museum whereas museums usually represent stuff that remains outside

[00:40:23] so this is not that new and you think of mass and sean and the surrealists and lots of artists

[00:40:29] beforehand but let's say that in some ways and the criticism towards this generation

[00:40:36] is the grittiness and the negativity that they brought into the to the museum as sort of

[00:40:43] the world is what it is and we're showing it um which i mean my take would be that this is kind of

[00:40:51] of their age at the time they were quite young and if you look at those artists now they are quite well

[00:40:58] often famous around the world others have kind of dissipated but they all grew quote unquote grew up

[00:41:05] as it were so i'm always a bit surprised that the reactions people have to visual artists and i guess

[00:41:11] perhaps people do that also with other art forms which is that we don't consider the age of the

[00:41:17] artists and what i find really moving about the yba is that they were young they were powerful

[00:41:23] they had gumption and they were of their own age of their own generation they changed quite a bit i mean

[00:41:30] if you think of arthur rambaud you know the famous uh french poet that disappeared in africa

[00:41:38] although his poems are very good they are poems of a person who was between his teens and a young

[00:41:43] adult age and when i studied him at school it was taken as this sort of universal ageless kind of

[00:41:50] poetry and when i realized that he was almost i was almost his age when i was studying him i was like

[00:41:57] okay so this speaks to a very specific state of mind a very specific sense of adventurousness and

[00:42:05] and a very specific need to break the mold and those ybas did break the mold they were very skilled

[00:42:15] there was innovation there there was knowledge of materials that weren't supposed to be materials

[00:42:20] of art all the time and skill impresses people and we confuse skill with maturity i mean these artists

[00:42:27] like we saw with emin they were educated they were passionate about art um and they wanted to be

[00:42:34] showing their work because one thing that emin stresses out as well is that this generation

[00:42:40] didn't have a whole bunch of museums a whole bunch of galleries to show their work in

[00:42:44] so they really wanted to be out there they wanted to communicate they had things to say but there

[00:42:50] weren't that many situations where you could say things and so this yba generation found themselves

[00:42:57] at the royal academy of art in the sensation exhibition the royal academy is a revered space of

[00:43:04] fabulously established or dead artists so that kind of created a tumultuous relationship with this

[00:43:13] generation that that we'll probably talk about later on so yeah interesting moment in history for emin

[00:43:20] there were the as as we talked about earlier the two breakout installations that demonstrate

[00:43:25] you know where she was at this time and what the first is the tent everyone i ever slept with 1963 to 1995

[00:43:32] which she made in 95 and my bed which is the installation that she made in 1998

[00:43:38] 1998 and the first is a tent you know a tent that you might take camping a dome tent yeah with

[00:43:46] appliqued names of everyone she'd had slept with and as we said before not just people she had sex with

[00:43:53] which included that as well um but anyone you know who she literally slept with so it does what it says on

[00:44:03] the tin so the piece was bought by saatchi and exhibited in his in the sensation exhibition that you just

[00:44:10] mentioned in 1997 sadly it was destroyed in a warehouse fire yeah in 2004 do you do you want to

[00:44:19] say a little bit more about sensation and that exhibition the exhibition was organized by norman

[00:44:25] rosenthal and gathered a whole generation of what i would call like post-punk artists i'm sorry i know

[00:44:34] these posts pre words are so silly but i i do i do make a connection between the 80s and that no future

[00:44:42] generation and this sort of grittiness but also this very intense awareness of wanting to make it and to

[00:44:51] establish themselves as trendsetters in the in the art world for lack of a better expression um and so

[00:44:59] they produced gritty unashamed really visceral works i don't want to put everyone in the same category

[00:45:06] because i mean you have jenny savile in there who's a marvelous painter she was in the summer show

[00:45:12] at the royal academy this year as was jillian waring as well and tracy emmon i mean these were artists that

[00:45:19] were changing the game but there was such an exaggeration also in regards to their work so

[00:45:28] sensation introduced them um to the the world and the general public reversing the idea we had of the

[00:45:37] uk and uk artists around the world which was that they were dipped in oil or acrylic paint

[00:45:42] so none of that for this generation whose paintings were deemed not like turners uh which was a shock

[00:45:50] considering that the turner prize was established in 1984 so it's hard to talk about the ybn

[00:45:57] sensation without talking about the turner prize that was kind of like the triangulation that brought

[00:46:04] contemporary art to the minds of the general public in the uk and cause an uproar for sure you know all of

[00:46:10] these things together kind of made up for an explosive material the prize was established in 84

[00:46:15] in praise of the boldness but by now very established kind of painting of william turner

[00:46:23] and the general public seemed to expect it to reward painting and seemed to expect to see painting at

[00:46:28] the royal academy which i think was also the problem with with this exhibition so um the prize had already

[00:46:35] introduced some of these artists of the exhibition such as damien hurst and sensation was the idea

[00:46:40] of the ideal event to ignite the general public and the journalists and our critics who were aghast

[00:46:45] not only with the art but also with the behavior of certain artists amongst which was tracy emmon

[00:46:54] who was very drunk during a channel for program titled and this is crazy and i urge you to re-watch this on

[00:47:03] on youtube because the thing was called is painting dead and it is absolutely hilarious it's cringy

[00:47:11] cringy beyond words i mean she makes it cringy because you know she is absolutely hammered during

[00:47:18] it but even without her it would have been the cringiest conversation ever i mean like it was such a

[00:47:29] great like it was like getting in a time machine you know and going back to that time because it was so

[00:47:35] just of its time it was just right up its own bum there were people in bow ties for god's sake i mean

[00:47:43] and the hair oh my god oh the hair yeah yeah and norman rosenthal is talking so the the camera spans to him

[00:47:53] and he has two kisses one kiss on each cheek probably by tracy emmon yeah and he talks like

[00:48:02] really seriously about the importance of painting and what painting is and what it's not and what it's

[00:48:09] doing and you're just looking at him and thinking man you're wearing a tuxedo you have two kisses on your

[00:48:15] face what is happening and if you if you didn't know better you might think to yourself is this like a

[00:48:23] late night skit is that what this like like i mean you're waiting for the joke to drop you know

[00:48:30] but you're just left in this yeah ambiguity and then yeah she pipes in and kudos to tim marlow who's the

[00:48:39] the presenter who yeah oh my god yes seriousness to the end how did he do was he on better blockers is my

[00:48:48] question that must be to date the longest hour hour and a half or whatever it was of his life

[00:48:58] because in the background he's introducing the show and in the background you hear something falling

[00:49:03] you hear a clunking noise you hear a female voice going what's that you know someone just endlessly

[00:49:10] speaking while he's introducing it and the program is amazing because the question is is painting dead

[00:49:16] and they convinced two people two art critics very serious ones to talk in defense of the paint of

[00:49:27] painting being alive and well and the other one of painting being dead yeah and the one who defends

[00:49:34] painting is a then director i think of more than painters the magazine and the other one that was a

[00:49:40] director of cultural of a cultural department at channel four i think uh voldemar janusik and which i mean

[00:49:49] that name i mean you know every single part of this is hilarious i mean and then at some point

[00:50:02] tracy eminenta jackson says are real people watching this i know she storms off oh god yes and she leaves

[00:50:13] as you say throughout the whole thing even when the camera is not on her you can hear her sort of

[00:50:19] chatting with her neighbor or saying disparaging things or arguing with what has just been said even

[00:50:26] though it's not her sort of moment to speak and then yeah she she's i mean and bless her like there was

[00:50:34] i i i i loved i i don't know how she feels about that i didn't read anything and after words about that

[00:50:42] but i mean in in a way it was like such a breath of fresh air to have somebody saying things like are

[00:50:50] real people watching this because all y'all are looking pretty pompous at this moment and you know

[00:50:57] if anybody was curious about it they will have turned it off by now you know um yeah you know if

[00:51:04] anyone wants to know yeah they 10 minutes in they will know that this is not the program that is going

[00:51:10] to tell them and the program has david sylvester he was like such a revered critic

[00:51:18] norman rosenthal um jane harris was such an amazing artist she passed away from cancer

[00:51:26] such an incredible abstract painter like you say was going into a time machine because you have

[00:51:32] painting literally everywhere at the moment the market's very conservative going back to um

[00:51:39] sensation so i think it's worth saying the artists that were in the exhibition there were 21 artists

[00:51:47] eight women for 13 men so not too bad okay and the artists were jake and dinos chapman

[00:51:54] very successful adam chotsko matt collishaw also successful tracy emmon marcus harvey damien

[00:52:04] hurst michael landy abigail lane sarah lucas jason martin ron muick chris of philly richard

[00:52:11] paterson simon paterson yes they are related brothers mark quinn fiona ray jenny savile sam taylor wood

[00:52:19] gavin turk jillian waring rachel white reed and they most of them became quite successful some of them

[00:52:26] got the turner prize really good galleries and it's also worth saying that one two three four five six

[00:52:33] got royal distinctions like obe's and tbe's and whatever tracy emmon is dame tracy emmon

[00:52:41] um and also just a tidbit like just just for laughs and giggles um sam taylor wood is the film director

[00:52:50] who did 50 shades of gray the film okay wow so she was an established artist i knew her as an artist a

[00:52:59] bit like steve mcqueen um of hunger and 12 years a slave and all that they were established artists

[00:53:07] that you know i whose shows i've i've seen so that that's kind of weird that's a weird one that is but

[00:53:14] anyway um this was sensation that got so much press and so much hatred from the public and it's aptly

[00:53:22] named because that was the big critique wasn't it was that all of this new art was just sensationalist

[00:53:27] and nothing else it wasn't crafted and you know it was just all attention getting which is you know

[00:53:34] tracy emmon got quite a bit of that and i mean her seminal piece at this time uh my bed it certainly got

[00:53:43] you know a lot of praise but absolute rancor as well i mean people were not happy that this could be

[00:53:52] considered art so the bed again is exactly what it says in the tin it's an installation of tracy emmon's

[00:53:59] actual bed and if you haven't seen it look it up there's loads of images of it it's tousled sheets

[00:54:04] bedside mess of empty vodka bottles cigarette packs overfilled ashtrays there's a really cute little

[00:54:12] stuffed dog little white stuffed dog i think it's a dog there some ky jelly old newspapers and jonathan

[00:54:20] jones in his book describes it really well he says quote uh my bed is found stuff in the way that caught

[00:54:30] imaginations for better or worse and it was and is a very pure manifestation of the idea that anything can

[00:54:38] be art here's her bed unmade unfresh surrounded in its squalor and the detritus of a messy life

[00:54:45] when emmon exhibited appear ready-made she did it with dollops of dirty realism created 98 and shown

[00:54:53] for the turner prize at the tate gallery the following year my bed bears the curious resemblance

[00:54:59] to damien hearse tiger in a vitrine in 1991 both flaunt their ready-made-ness in a way that outraged

[00:55:07] lovers of crafted art yet both have a fleshy excitement far from the cool ironies of duchamp

[00:55:16] you know and it's like bicycle wheel on the table very very different you know kettle of fish sorry

[00:55:22] that's me ad-libbing there so quote again the shark shows off its deadly teeth the bed is littered with

[00:55:27] stuff of sex and illness all these bottles and drugs and tubes of lubricating jelly and ashtrays

[00:55:35] are not used as symbols they are exhibited as forensic evidence traces of the woman whose bed this was

[00:55:43] which is i i just love that i just think it like really encapsulates like that this these are not

[00:55:50] symbols of things these are as you said as well you know we are bringing the outside world into the

[00:55:56] museum and she has done so in a very intimate way she's not bringing in a tiger shark she's bringing

[00:56:03] in herself into the museum and that was um and she's not bringing in a boudoir with lipstick no and

[00:56:12] necklaces where we put our mosques to go out into the world she's bringing the other side of it which is

[00:56:20] incredible and i mean i think one of the other things that really struck me in looking at her

[00:56:26] and sort of the conversation around her art which isn't unique to her but uh is maybe specific because

[00:56:34] she's a woman is this whole conversation about the fact that she's making money and um you know i

[00:56:43] listened to an interview with her what do you mean by that well so i listened to an interview with her

[00:56:48] in in 2004 and the host of the interview kept coming back to this idea of well yeah you're exposing

[00:56:58] yourself but you're making a lot of money off it aren't you you're getting really rich you're lining

[00:57:03] your pockets off of and she wasn't as explicit as that in the interview but it was so the undertone

[00:57:09] that's what's the subtext yeah absolutely and you know i liked how tracy emin handled it it was like

[00:57:17] well you know i i'm glad you know that's great that i'm making money and and quite honestly if i

[00:57:24] if i didn't make any money off of this and if i didn't get any positive feedback you know i'm not

[00:57:30] sure i'd be here like you know you have to and she means that quite literally yeah exactly exactly yeah

[00:57:38] for sure so it i mean it kind of reminded me of i remember a controversy when i was at university

[00:57:44] and any of any folks who know ani de franco she's a folk artist and she was she was kind of big on the

[00:57:52] college scene ms magazine great feminist magazine gave her a nod in the 90s for all the records that

[00:57:59] she was selling and they referred to her success only in terms of sales you know that she was making

[00:58:07] more per album than hootie and the blowfish which is also a big 90s band at the time maybe a lot of

[00:58:15] people don't remember but um but you know just kind of that critique and that metric of rating art

[00:58:22] on commerciality rather than you know in emin's case the fact that she is bringing things that are

[00:58:30] really intimate depictions of herself and how she is living life and and navigating through life that is

[00:58:37] obviously connecting with a lot of other people you know that that in and of itself is is something to

[00:58:43] be exalted and rewarded and talked about and praised and you know i think that's what ani de franco is

[00:58:49] saying she wrote a very uh eloquent pointed letter to ms magazine saying i don't want your accolades like if

[00:58:58] it's only going to be because i've made money well thanks but no thanks and you know i think that's

[00:59:04] something that not unique to women artists but maybe got you know uh launched at women artists

[00:59:11] more than than than male artists about like oh well yeah you're doing all this confessional stuff but

[00:59:17] you're making a lot of money off it so that's probably why you're doing it it's just you know

[00:59:21] that must have been a lot for her to navigate at the time and also don't you think it's weird in this

[00:59:29] country or you don't speak about money yeah right to have the guts to address that question publicly

[00:59:37] to a person and i agree with you that it's probably because she's a woman but i do think it's because of

[00:59:43] her accent like you said yourself you weren't expecting to hear that accent and i think she's

[00:59:49] considered lesser than and that's my theory i'm of course judging a bit but you have to ask yourself

[00:59:58] at some point why are people treating her like that yeah don't treat people you consider as your equals

[01:00:06] yeah of course of course and when we say like that scathing things were written about her i i find it

[01:00:13] beautiful i after the break we'll talk about the exhibition to see that you know you made this

[01:00:19] point of without money artists don't produce yeah and she was lucky enough and we are lucky enough

[01:00:27] that she got money yeah so that she could make this show and the shows that she did before well let's

[01:00:34] take a break i need a cup of tea we'll be right back after the break all right see you in a sec

[01:00:59] so welcome back everyone joanna do you want to introduce us to the exhibition yes with pleasure um so

[01:01:08] first of all the white cube gallery is a commercial gallery as you said founded in 1993 it's one of the

[01:01:16] oldest galleries of contemporary art and so this is where the exhibition takes place it was created by

[01:01:22] jay joplin he's a major actor in the fields having promoted artists of the yba generation but also many

[01:01:28] others after that so the gallery is now huge it has several spaces across the world

[01:01:37] in london two spaces new york hong kong paris and seoul so this exhibition takes place at the

[01:01:45] bermondsey location which is bigger than many art centers that we know i mean it is like a small

[01:01:53] one's fine basically so the space is super impressive and the scale it demands of the artists at times feels

[01:02:01] worrisome to me i kind of feel like the artists will produce works in the bigger scale because they're

[01:02:07] represented by a bigger gallery but with emin that is not a problem you know she has paintings that are

[01:02:16] super small like a kiss as she says so herself or huge so as you enter there's a big central corridor

[01:02:24] with small paintings on each side but i really really small they're like almost half an a4 sheet

[01:02:31] yeah uh size and at the end so you see this big corridor with very small paintings so you go and

[01:02:38] you really lean into the paintings to see them there's a so at the end there's a wall sculpture there

[01:02:45] that appears to be made of bronze emulating those old medieval woods crucifixion sculptures you see at the

[01:02:52] british museum half eaten away by bugs so the head is missing parts of the legs but there's also a

[01:02:58] specific torsion of the body that alludes to the body of christ i mean that's what i thought of i mean

[01:03:04] maybe it was me but yeah of course it's kind of like obviously has that relationship to the history of

[01:03:11] sculpture so overall we are very far i just have to say this from sensation and the fears that

[01:03:18] traditional means of art are dead because you cannot get a more traditional exhibition sculpture and

[01:03:23] painting on the surface on the surface very traditional so the space on the left um has a

[01:03:33] smaller painting so there's three big rooms and the corridor the space the room on the left has three

[01:03:39] i think three bigger paintings and a smaller one and you start realizing that they all have the same

[01:03:46] colors blue black red and white or if one wants to be more poetic about it as the text accompanying the

[01:03:55] show is a palette or quote a palette of carmine ivory and black temper unquote which i found really sweet

[01:04:04] so the room on the right is much bigger with a wall in the middle and you tend to go around through

[01:04:10] the right and explore the narrative of the paintings where there's some text so some text starts appearing

[01:04:15] in these paintings in the second room there's a narrative to the exhibition right it's not

[01:04:21] a complete narrative you have to fill in the blanks obviously but there is a sort of narrative in the

[01:04:28] exhibition um so in this space so some writings appear alluding to internal conflicts and emotions of

[01:04:37] entrapment and love and most paintings so far of images of the body or bodies in bed at times with

[01:04:44] cats her own cats and one has the immediate knowledge that this is personal autobiographical

[01:04:51] and confessional and yet it's also a very common experience so all the paintings depict being in bed

[01:04:59] lying down eating masturbating sleeping aching having sex etc suffering uh being ill you know everything

[01:05:10] it's it really is very relatable at the same time so the other final space is even bigger and it's for sure

[01:05:18] the most impactful one on a gut level because it has this big sculpture of a woman on all fours

[01:05:24] yeah there's no doubt it's a woman and a number of striking paintings where a confessional tone

[01:05:32] led her to write on them again one of them says i don't want to have sex because my body feels

[01:05:37] dead and you see it as you go in and go to the left you see it from afar um and then on the same angle but

[01:05:46] on the wall closer to you there's a painting of a woman spreading her legs on the bed so it's all very

[01:05:56] nuanced and conflicting everything's about conflicting feelings so the show ends with the video whose title

[01:06:05] escapes me now i don't remember it revealing one of you know the most challenging or changing aspects of a

[01:06:12] very turbulent life as it is for the artist which is her soma so after her cancer her bladder cancer her

[01:06:19] bladder was removed a few organs around it and she has to have an external and artificial bladder and

[01:06:27] the the video is basically her filming herself with a phone i'm presuming from below and so you see a bit

[01:06:37] of her breast seen from below you see her belly with this very alien like um small kind of organ that looks

[01:06:49] a bit like a penis at times stretching in and out and bleeding onto the belly so there's kind of these

[01:06:56] rivulets of blood on the belly and she explains that this is a quotidian experience for her she needs to take

[01:07:04] care of it and it bleeds very often and she decided to film it and it's a very the noise it's um delayed

[01:07:12] so it's it's in slow motion um but you don't know that it's slow motion because it's almost a static image

[01:07:20] but you hear a sort of sound in the background like wow and it's kind of a sort of an out-of-body

[01:07:26] experience but there's a body there and i can tell you that the reactions of the spectators when they go in

[01:07:33] is quite something she's still out there shocking people i went in again you know i knew her from

[01:07:39] vaguely the bed and some neons and i did not associate her with painting and so i you know i wasn't sure what

[01:07:47] to expect but going in there and seeing her paintings oh my god can the woman paint what i was struck by

[01:07:55] in the paintings is there's parts of images that are detailed you might have part of a face or part of a body

[01:08:02] that is recognizable and has you know lines that represent such but then there's disintegration of

[01:08:11] the image all over as well and some of it looks like a horror movie that essence in the feeling of

[01:08:19] when you are ill when you are depressed when you are bleeding and all of those things make you feel

[01:08:27] monstrous this this person she's representing is not fit for society like they don't have

[01:08:35] any kind of the wherewithal the energy to put on the things that it would take to put on to be

[01:08:45] acceptable so many of the beds are you know looking at vaguely the same angle but kind of a little bit

[01:08:55] different each time and sometimes as you say you might see one of the cats teacup and pancake or what

[01:09:01] they're called they're adorable all over instagram i really encourage you to have a look but um they

[01:09:07] are so cute but um you know you might see the cat in the background or you might get more detail in

[01:09:13] the wallpaper that you don't have another but that you get the sense of time passing

[01:09:19] oh i didn't think of that because it's true that you think these are days yeah right these are several

[01:09:27] days so just for clarification or maybe for visualization for those who can't make it to

[01:09:33] the show for various reasons they are very impressive because so the bigger paintings are very impressive

[01:09:41] impressive because they look like a sketch like someone is telling you something they can't tell

[01:09:50] with words so they have to make a sketch to show you and so for me the impressive thing is how do you

[01:09:58] make a sketch that big because she never prepares for paintings she doesn't beforehand define structure

[01:10:05] a bit like alice neal she kind of went into the raw painting and so but she doesn't she's depicting

[01:10:13] herself so unlike alice neal she doesn't have an external um reference to paint she's painting

[01:10:22] herself as she felt in her bed and so she's sketching she's like okay so i was here so i was crying so

[01:10:29] you see the tears down my face and then well you see i was bleeding as well so she shows the blood like

[01:10:35] really quick brush strokes yeah but in such a magnitude for someone who was so sick for six months

[01:10:42] couldn't hold a brush couldn't take a make tea she was so unwell and then to make these very big

[01:10:51] paintings there are just showing you pain points pleasure points happiness points points of strangeness

[01:11:00] of um uncanniness um from above seen from above like a sort of a god-like thing but it's really uh

[01:11:09] i am painting what this thing that i was feeling and like you say there are moments where you can see the

[01:11:15] face moments where there's a one of there's a few portraits so in the first room in on the right

[01:11:23] the it's the more internal one where she's stating that she's afraid of being loved she feels dispossessed

[01:11:31] of herself if she's desired that's what the text says in a very repetitive manner she writes really

[01:11:38] well and the text is really beautiful because at the beginning you're like oh texts okay yeah i can't

[01:11:43] read her writing but then you cannot stop reading because it's so fascinating and so clear what she's

[01:11:49] saying i think maybe for us women but also for so many people trapped in the relationship that clearly

[01:11:56] is dispossessing you and she and she speaks of her fear of not being herself and you feel like her not

[01:12:04] being herself is her not being able to ruminate through painting and then there's three portraits

[01:12:12] where the first one she's kind of almost disappearing and she draws so she paints i say she draws i mean it is a

[01:12:18] kind of drawing on raw canvas so you can see the canvas as well and she the face is almost

[01:12:26] disappearing they're kind of ghostly these paintings but you know that notion of we all have those moments

[01:12:33] right that we are depressed we are ill we are for one reason are we're in pain for one reason or another

[01:12:44] and and some and a lot of i mean we spend a third of our time there just sleeping hopefully in a normal

[01:12:51] way so i mean so much of our lives are passed in bed for one reason or another and if as she seems to

[01:13:00] depict in the in the exhibition you know having a period of life where you are spending a lot more time

[01:13:07] in bed are we not ourselves in that moment i mean when we're in pain when we're in depression when we're

[01:13:16] ill and i think that what i really appreciated about the about the exhibition is you is that this is the

[01:13:27] human experience this is her human experience this is all of our human experience and it's it's it's so

[01:13:33] easy to think of that time as like dead time you know i mean i have spent a lot of time in bed lately

[01:13:43] i mean way more than i ever have i've you know was diagnosed with a rare blood condition and there's

[01:13:51] you know the treatment is is you know all working and it's all manageable and it's all going to be fine

[01:13:57] but there's been a period of time here where i have had no energy and spending you know a lot more time in bed

[01:14:05] and you know having those moments where it's like you'll fall asleep so fully and you'll wake up in the

[01:14:12] middle of the day and be like god what day is it is it morning or is it evening or you know that disorientation

[01:14:20] that you can get from these times in our lives where you are not doing what you normally do and i think

[01:14:29] what what what i left thinking about is how we frame those kinds of times how i frame this time in my own

[01:14:40] life i mean is it is it a time that is that like time when i when i wasn't myself when i'm you know and

[01:14:48] then i'll get back to myself and then but this is all part of it so it's like i think there's something

[01:14:55] about acknowledging and embracing the moments in your life when our bodies and our minds and our souls

[01:15:07] stop us in our busy tracks and say you're going to be in bed for a little while and i it felt like that

[01:15:15] it was very alive on the canvases that she had there was one that she had that wasn't in a bed

[01:15:24] but it was like a body in a urban landscape and i don't remember the name of it but there was like

[01:15:35] uh there was a building obvious buildings in the background and then they are outside kind of

[01:15:41] naked and lying down and um and there was something about that like that that vulnerability

[01:15:50] in a public space and there was something about the way she drew the windows on the building they were

[01:15:59] so innocent they were the the way she drew the shape of the rectangle for the windows was as

[01:16:08] like very childlike like you would see in a child's drawing and it was just this combination of these

[01:16:15] elements that she manages to manifest along with you know just incredible you know layering of the

[01:16:26] of the painting itself but i mean i was just blown away like i just it really was so moving this is the

[01:16:35] first one that i've gone to see twice and i mean truth be told it was not that far from a place where

[01:16:41] i've been going for my appointments but um but but yeah it just it really felt like you know having

[01:16:49] another immersion was necessary to absorb a lot of what she was and what she was putting across

[01:16:57] yeah it's so interesting because when i got in and i saw the exhibition i thought

[01:17:02] oh i wonder how emily is going to feel because it definitely is an exhibition that frames the ill body

[01:17:13] in a way that embraces its abject side and the video is there to say this is the body and this

[01:17:24] is the state it's in there's a femininity to illness as well so uh as you know i've also been at well for

[01:17:33] very different reasons but also with you know blood related um issues with anemia and you ask yourself

[01:17:40] those questions you say what about sex what about pleasure what about where is pleasure now and i had

[01:17:47] the same experience as you where because i was so deeply anemic um that i had to have a blood

[01:17:53] transfusion transfusion but one of the things that now that i'm better much much much much better that i miss

[01:18:02] are the way is the way i slept the sleep is so deep it's so populated with dreams and images

[01:18:13] as someone who's a fantastic i don't visualize when i'm awake dreams are quite fantastic for me but i

[01:18:20] i'm not a good dreamer but when i was in that state the dreams were so incredible and like you say

[01:18:27] is this experience not to be valued yeah are you not yourself your question is incredible because it

[01:18:33] are you still yourself and the reason why you're asking that question is that because society

[01:18:38] keeps telling you a lot of things about your body about your gender about your role in society about

[01:18:46] your work about your value about your appearance and all of that comes into very clear becomes a very

[01:18:54] clear picture when you're unwell you know when you're ill what about the sculpture we didn't talk about it

[01:19:01] yeah the sculpture is incredible i mean i liked your description of it of like that replicating

[01:19:10] a wooden sculpture that has been around for eons and has just aged aged aged aged and parts of it

[01:19:17] have fallen off and i think that describes it so well um but yeah i mean talk about no but the big

[01:19:25] sculpture in the big room but that but that too you know it kind of has that yes feeling it's the same

[01:19:30] exactly yes but um yeah vulnerable that is a that is a very vulnerable position you know basically it's

[01:19:40] a woman on her knees but you only get the lower half it's enormous you can't not look at it you

[01:19:46] know i mean it's huge enormous yeah i didn't even know what i was looking at at first

[01:19:52] you know when i i was like i don't you know and then finally you get to an angle where you're like

[01:19:58] oh oh okay oh sure oh it's a pussy yeah yeah yeah and that's what it is yeah but i mean yeah i mean i

[01:20:07] loved it it yeah it was great i feel like if that were done on a different size if it were smaller if it

[01:20:15] were you know it would feel i don't know there was something there was something really impactful about

[01:20:21] the size of it and the enormity of it for sure it's so gigantic i kind of i was talking to diogo

[01:20:26] who also went to see the exhibition and i was like okay so you're the artist like how does one

[01:20:33] make a sculpture like that it's bronze how does one go about making it because it's like the paintings

[01:20:41] you imagine it to be molded with the hands but then it's huge and even if there's a trick to it i'm

[01:20:48] pretty sure that if tracy emin was here she'd say well do you know what i did it with my hands then i

[01:20:54] enlarged it 3d printed some costs of whatever it doesn't matter because it still is this decision

[01:21:02] of making a like you go you can go under it it makes me think of mother you know the the spiders by

[01:21:08] louise bourgeois you can go under it um you you can you can it it it would crush you if it fell on you

[01:21:17] like you would immediately die it's so big and yet it seems to have been molded by a distracted child

[01:21:26] and it's the ravaged body but at the same time it's the moving body the body kind of like flowing and

[01:21:34] being in itself and being all flesh there's something a sort of attribute to a simple relationship with

[01:21:43] the body as well right a literal this is what it is and that's where suddenly the pleasure and the

[01:21:52] happiness comes again and i i kind of went in there and seeing yeah i mean she did a lot for us

[01:21:59] like she yeah she did a lot for us she's doing a lot for us and i felt like a sister you know like

[01:22:06] the sisterhood is working and we have space now to talk about these things and we're doing a podcast

[01:22:12] where we reference these things which was not possible a few years back and she's one of those

[01:22:18] little sisters who was weaving in the background and made it possible so thank you thank you tracy emin

[01:22:25] totally you know thank you so much we're here because of you and thanks to you and many other

[01:22:31] sisters as well she's not alone in this she contributed i feel so lucky that i didn't know

[01:22:38] much before and now there is this wealth of it's you know it's like finding the gold pot at the end

[01:22:44] of the rainbow of work of hers to be able to dive into and explore i mean there's so much i agree

[01:22:53] that i feel wholeheartedly that i feel appreciative of the work that she has done because of what it has

[01:23:00] done for me and the connection that i have had to it but what i love about her and maybe this is true

[01:23:07] for way more artists you know maybe it's true for all artists i don't know but with her i really get

[01:23:14] the sense that she doesn't care about she doesn't need me to do to feel any way and you know i get the

[01:23:23] strong presence from her that she is doing it for herself first and foremost because she has to she

[01:23:30] just has to get in there and do it and there's a freedom in that that i feel you know there's there's

[01:23:37] she is not pandering to one single person you know and there's a there's a freedom in being in

[01:23:45] a relationship with art that isn't asking anything of me but it's just saying this is it

[01:23:52] you know this is what i got do with it as you as you may i was thinking this there's always amongst

[01:24:01] women artists um this recurring especially artists of like two generations up from me that i speak to

[01:24:09] who are in the 70s 80s um who said who are kind of disgusted by their their peers who are making

[01:24:18] very confessional gender-based work so they are more conceptual artists and they say you know gender

[01:24:25] is not important for me and i really hate it when women put that out there

[01:24:31] and it's very conflicting because i'm as i've said before i really do love conceptual art

[01:24:37] and it's formed me it's it's it's i'm i'm built into that or it's built into me

[01:24:44] um i'm always a bit grieved you know i have a sort of grievance regarding that where i i loved what you

[01:24:51] said because she might not be for everyone or she might not be for every stage in your life

[01:24:57] yeah sometimes you might not want to bask in that but i think there's a beauty and understanding that's

[01:25:05] what we try to do with the podcast and it goes back to our conversation in the first episode

[01:25:09] where there's a space for everyone and some people are very um self-respecting of their privacy and

[01:25:17] their intimacy and they don't want to put it out there that's not what they have to give to the world

[01:25:23] um and the art world sometimes or the contemporary art spaces are a sort of a platform where everyone is

[01:25:29] together but it's not a platform it's a it's a very big building with lots of little rooms and secret

[01:25:35] areas and that's how i see the art world and i don't for a long time i was very against you know self

[01:25:45] narrative and and exposure and and i remember coming into the art world as a kid almost and having the

[01:25:54] yba behind me in the 90s hearing about bed and hearing about everybody i slept with and being

[01:26:00] really confused by it because that's not what i was being told by philosophy art criticism aesthetics

[01:26:09] uh you know that was something not to do that was something that we had overcome by conceptualism

[01:26:15] minimalism we were not there anymore that was a no-go and i remember not knowing what to think of it

[01:26:22] but at the same time a part of me was speaking to it you know sometimes there's some grief in me

[01:26:28] when i hear some women talk about other women artists like oh oh why is she doing that you know

[01:26:36] again i don't know i think we need to give space to that maybe it's not our jam maybe it's not for

[01:26:42] every day but i mean she's out there and she's you know painting her own truth i don't think many

[01:26:49] people get to say that you know great so the show is at the white cube bermondsey until the 10th of

[01:26:58] november in london so if you have time do go check it out and joanna do you want to say a little bit

[01:27:06] about who we have teed up for next time yes so we're going back to the curve at the barbican if you

[01:27:15] remember it's a very very special exhibition space that is you guessed it curved so that's what we will

[01:27:23] be talking about but very specifically of pamela futzimo sunstrom's project called it will end in

[01:27:31] tears i mean we are in it for very very pathos driven titles this season um so that's what that's our

[01:27:40] next episode and if you want to prepare for the third one uh we will be talking about mike kelly at

[01:27:47] tate modern so we're in for very very interesting episodes for sure indeed and also we have something

[01:27:57] new that yeah i'm putting out there um so very tentatively because we are of a certain age and we are not

[01:28:09] very good with this kind of thing but we are trying so we are trying not to have any ads in the in the

[01:28:19] podcast we're trying to kind of remain one accessible so no subscriptions no bonus episodes and second just

[01:28:43] um so we're trying not to have any ads in the podcast we're trying not to have any ads in the podcast

[01:28:47] so if you want to support this effort this endeavor um we are we are in it for the long run so we will be

[01:28:55] doing this for a long time um and therefore because of that we would urge you to go to patreon

[01:29:02] and become a member so you can just pay for a membership it's the price of a latte so maybe not a latte on

[01:29:08] tuesdays and a podcast on fridays for you um you can go to patreon we have a page there exhibitionist

[01:29:16] is podcast you can become a member and in that way for very little money a month you can support us

[01:29:22] and we can keep on doing this much more comfortably than we do now and maybe we can produce more

[01:29:29] episodes if there's a bunch of you who support us that would be really really great yeah so that's it

[01:29:34] very tentatively putting it out there and hopefully you will follow through the link is in the the show

[01:29:41] notes um it's also on our instagram so you know we can access it really easily um and if you have

[01:29:49] trouble there's always our email you know contact us give us ideas give us feedback leave us reviews

[01:29:55] also you know five stars or more and a nice comment is very welcome yeah totally all of that yeah

[01:30:03] brilliant all right well thank you so much joanna this is brilliant i really talk about starting season

[01:30:10] two's first exhibition with a real uh with a real barnstormer this is great thank you so much thank

[01:30:17] you emily your insights are always always so welcome and so enriching for me personally and i'm sure for

[01:30:25] our listeners so thank you so much yeah and um see you next time until next time see you next time bye

[01:30:34] bye bye everyone bye