I’m Not Tracey Emin
But I have learnt some things from her.
It’s a great line for a documentary. As someone who’s nervously embracing the idea of being a creative, or artist, I’m looking for inspiration. I’m trying to figure out my day. How to get the kids out of bed, take first light photographs of the Tour de France preparations, remember to put the curry in the slow cooker. To pay some attention to money, to write this. To sort out the website page that says “under construction” whilst listening to The Prodigy. I’m watching “What do artists do all day — Tracey Emin.”
Tracey Emin is known for her confessional artwork covering a variety of media. Part of the Young British Artists in the 1980s and now a Royal Academician of the Royal Academy of Arts. Her well-known works include My Bed and messages lit with neon lighting. Controversial, rebellious, and in the documentary, approachable. I’m acknowledging the differences between us (I’m not off to promote my work in Tokyo) but I’m looking for common ground.
Early on in the film, there is the commercial side of art. The offices with lever-arch files. The staff who organise her exhibitions. The office is in contrast to the open-spaced studio where she creates. Half of the building space is for offices. It’s about business. She talks of accountant meetings as “really dry”, but it’s “really important”. I could learn from this professionalism in approach and look at how I organise my space. Currently, the money files are on a separate (bottom) shelf from the stories and inspirational notebooks. What would it be like if they were a little more accessible?
Tracey is sitting on the sofa; I see the same fears. She is eating a sandwich, plucking up the courage to start a big painting. My work isn’t a huge canvas to be exhibited and critiqued. There is not that exposure. But the moment where you take the beautiful idea out of your head and have to put it out into the world, I get.
The vulnerability and qualities that make us tough and frail are exposed. Her work Humiliated (Swan) based on The Black Swan by Thomas Mann, explores how complicated life can be. Her acceptance that sometimes “life’s embarrassing sometimes”, and still being willing to take risks and ‘push things a little bit”.
By contrast, prudence and caution to practical matters show in staging The Leopold Gallery exhibition. Presenting both Tracey’s work and selected works of Egon Schiele, the Schiele work is from the early 20th Century. It is fragile and cannot be exposed all the time. After a show, the paper must rest for five years in a dark room. One of the Emin works broke in transit. Sometimes the ideas for wiring need to change, and sometimes pictures get hung too high. This balance between embarrassment, risk, rest, fix, adapt, and the little dramas reflect not just art, but yesterday. All of these elements are found in each day. I’m just working with it. Which brings me to support.
The value of the team she has worked with for years and trusts. The installers who have worked on the neon projects. The faces of the gallery staff hanging portraits when she says “they’re too high”. The humour that comes when you know this is how life is, and it makes you laugh.
Balance.
One of the pieces which help me keep this equilibrium in mind, is Louise Bourgeois’, Poids. The work that Tracey Emin would love to have. The delicacy of fragile spiky crystals and the solid cantilevered base that supports them. The two elements are working together.
“You’ve got to keep your head screwed on, and be together because otherwise, no-one’s going to know you’re there”.
Keeping it real.
