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reviews TRACEY EMIN
trAcey emin: you Left me BreAthing
GAGosIAN GAllERY, BEvERlY HIlls
2 NovEM BER – 22 DECEM BER
Anyone waiting for infamously
oversexed artworld iconoclast and YBA
Tracey Emin to get over the whole
Fatal Attraction voodoo bedsheet
sex-as-a-weapon thing could find
reasons for hope, exasperation and
even nostalgia among the sprawling,
multivalent exhibition of mostly new
work at Gagosian Gallery. With series
of paintings, bronze sculptures, neon
wall works, drawings and the obligatory
embroideries crowding one another
throughout the galleries, the installation
borders on the cacophonous, but
with the fortunate result of forcing
dissonant bodies of work into dialogue
with one another, ultimately yielding
a compelling insight into the awkward transitional phase Emin seems to be navigating currently. A sort of
I Told You Not to Try to
Find Me, 2007,
petrified forest of freestanding white sculptures basks in the cold glow cast by the wall-size installation Flower acrylic on canvas,
Neon (White) (2007). The antiseptic contrast between the luminous curves and arcs of the flower and the
205 x 282 cm. Courtesy
Gagosian Gallery,
pointy, jaunty, stripped-down armatures of the sculptures might be more eloquent were the nuances of their
Beverly Hills
abstract discourse not shouted down by the presence of several large sketchy, unsatisfying painted canvases
at eye level.
The incorporation of neon and heavier materials in these sculptures, in particular You Turn Me On
(2007), is a promising direction for Emin, indicating an awareness that she has got all there was to get out of
her trademark métier, testing the viability of her psychological constructs in other formal idioms by trading
needlepoint for metal and electrical wires, and even approaching painting as a craft rather than as a very large
scratch pad. Get Ready for the Fuck of Your Life is a binary example of this, as she reuses the same image in
two formats (acrylic on canvas and embroidered cotton, both 2007). A commercial aeroplane, showing its
belly to the viewer as it points towards the sky, reads as sprawled and prone like a splayed female body; a form
both shapely and vulnerable. But her figurative technique suffers as her frantic rage obliterates finesse and her
grandiose self-indulgence refuses to age gracefully. The point of catharsis is supposed to be resolution and
progress, but the new directions her materials seemed to promise fail to materialise.
The most compelling work in the exhibition is the suite of 18 framed monoprints, Family Suite II (1994).
Like pages from a notebook, these are tight and clear but gestural, mysterious but legible, and not self-
consciously naive, with a refreshing authenticity, intimate scale, a broader narrative and pictures of people
besides herself. Yet they are still transgressive in their scenes of masturbation and molestation, offering
tantalisingly actual insight into the artist’s psyche. It’s a pity this is the oldest work, though lingering remnants
of ingenuity appear in one series of small embroidered cloth pieces from the current year. Greedy Love (2007)
reads, ‘Oh Christ I just wanted you to fuck me then I became greedy and wanted you to love me’, and its almost
romantic, wistful simplicity – while keeping up the infiltration and corruption of domesticity by vulgarity and
pornography – seems more private, and thus honest and personal. Emin is at her best when she lets down her
guard; here’s hoping she does it more often. Shana Nys Dambrot
121 Artreview
FEB_REVIEWS.indd 121 2/1/08 13:52:46
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