{"id":2554,"date":"2026-07-07T17:51:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T00:51:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/?p=2554"},"modified":"2026-07-07T18:31:45","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T01:31:45","slug":"art-tracey-emin-woman-power-woman-pain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/2026\/07\/art-tracey-emin-woman-power-woman-pain\/","title":{"rendered":"art: Tracey Emin &#8211; woman power, woman pain"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I found Tracey Emin&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tate.org.uk\/whats-on\/tate-modern\/tracey-emin\">&#8220;A Second Life&#8221; exhibition at Tate Modern<\/a> irritating at first because you have to read paragraphs of her handwriting. But the payoffs are huge. &#8220;My Future&#8221; ends with &#8220;That&#8217;s the last Dead Thing to Leave my body&#8221; (her extracted dead tooth <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"16\" width=\"16\" src=\"https:\/\/static.xx.fbcdn.net\/images\/emoji.php\/v9\/t26\/1\/16\/1f9b7.png\" alt=\"\ud83e\uddb7\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"16\" width=\"16\" src=\"https:\/\/static.xx.fbcdn.net\/images\/emoji.php\/v9\/tac\/1\/16\/1fae8.png\" alt=\"\ud83e\udee8\">!), which in the context of the life she lays bare leaves you gasping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"644\" src=\"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/20260705-My-Future-by-Tracey-Emin-1024x644.jpg\" alt=\"Tracey Emin's 1993 mixed-media piece: three presentation boxes showing her old passport, a dead extracted tooth with a dentist's business card, and a devastating hand-written letter\" class=\"wp-image-2556\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/20260705-My-Future-by-Tracey-Emin-1024x644.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/20260705-My-Future-by-Tracey-Emin-300x189.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/20260705-My-Future-by-Tracey-Emin-768x483.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/20260705-My-Future-by-Tracey-Emin-1536x966.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/20260705-My-Future-by-Tracey-Emin-2048x1288.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>My Future<\/em> by Tracey Emin 1993-1994; it&#8217;s work to read the text, but do it!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The quilted blankets are as moving as ever (&#8230; if you read enough panels). Her paintings of figures with black or red marks in place of faces are intense, better perhaps than the <a href=\"https:\/\/duckduckgo.com\/?q=William+de+Kooning+figure+paintings&amp;iar=images&amp;t=ffab\">William De Kooning figure paintings<\/a> of which they remind me in my limited exposure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"792\" src=\"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/Not-Fuckable-Tracey-Emin-2023_cropped-1024x792.webp\" alt=\"figurative painting of two forms roughly outlined in blue by Tracey Emin\" class=\"wp-image-2561\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/Not-Fuckable-Tracey-Emin-2023_cropped-1024x792.webp 1024w, https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/Not-Fuckable-Tracey-Emin-2023_cropped-300x232.webp 300w, https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/Not-Fuckable-Tracey-Emin-2023_cropped-768x594.webp 768w, https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/Not-Fuckable-Tracey-Emin-2023_cropped-1536x1187.webp 1536w, https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/Not-Fuckable-Tracey-Emin-2023_cropped.webp 1828w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>Not F***able<\/em>, 2023 (205 \u00d7 279 cm acrylic \u2013 big! \u2013on canvas); intense<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The room showing her 1996 video &#8220;How it Feels&#8221; about her abortion was standing-room-only full of women. She goes deep on the inescapable fact that women are tied to their bodies, in ways men simply aren&#8217;t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It was pure luck that the &#8220;Sensation&#8221; show was on at the Royal Academy in 1997 when I strolled in, including her tent &#8220;Everyone I Have Slept With 1963-1995&#8221;. I didn&#8217;t get the work then, I may never fully &#8220;get it,&#8221; but the show&#8217;s title didn&#8217;t lie.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"381\" src=\"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/Everyone-I-have-ever-slept-with-1963-1995-Tracey-Emin-1995.jpg\" alt=\"photograph of Tracey Emin's mixed media conceptual artwork &quot;Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963\u20131995&quot;, a tent to which she appliqu\u00e9d the names of, literally, everyone she had ever slept with\" class=\"wp-image-2558\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/Everyone-I-have-ever-slept-with-1963-1995-Tracey-Emin-1995.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/Everyone-I-have-ever-slept-with-1963-1995-Tracey-Emin-1995-300x191.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">literally, everyone she had ever slept with, but not necessarily sexually<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/artanddesign\/2026\/feb\/25\/tracey-emin-review-tate-modern-london\">The Guardian review of &#8220;Second Life&#8221;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I found Tracey Emin&#8217;s &#8220;A Second Life&#8221; exhibition at Tate Modern irritating at first because you have to read paragraphs of her handwriting. But the payoffs are huge. &#8220;My Future&#8221; ends with &#8220;That&#8217;s the last Dead Thing to Leave my &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/2026\/07\/art-tracey-emin-woman-power-woman-pain\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2554"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2573,"href":"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2554\/revisions\/2573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}