I Followed You to the End

Published: Tuesday, 5 November 2024

It is hard to think of Contemporary Art and not think of the YBA: the Young British Artists who shocked the world in the 1990s with their unconventional materials and provocative themes. And when you think of the YBA, it’s even harder not to think of Tracey Emin. She is a bit of a trailblazing legend.

Sorry, that's DAME Tracey Emin: in 2013 Queen Elizabeth II appointed her Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for her contributions to the visual arts, and in 2024 she was made a Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the King’s Birthday Honours. The British really do come up with the grandest titles, don't they?

Who is Tracey Emin?

Tracey emerged with the likes of Damien Hirst (we talked about Damien a few months ago here). Their arrival exploded into public consciousness as a media circus surrounded the artists, their provocative art, outrageous behavior and large-than-life public personas.

Her work is raw, emotive, and forthright, with an emphasis on her own personal monologue and the universal feminine experience. While her work is explicitly feminist, you can see the inspiration of expressionist painters Egon Schiele and Edvard Munch in her figure work and command of colour. As a result of Emin’s profound emotional honesty radiating from her work, it generates an intimate experience allowing her to connect deeply with a large audience.

Above everything, Emin is aware. She is aware of her own emotion and trauma, and she uses that awareness to channel, express and build. She is aware there are demons, but her awareness allows her to tell stories where she confronts her struggles. She is aware of the role of women in society, and uses that awareness to consciously draw the audience towards reflection, discourse and engagement. To be honest, it can be deeply unsettling to view her work, especially in person, because it is challenging and uncomfortable, but her awareness allows her to comfort you while she is confronting you, inviting you to question and process your own discomfort, to use art as therapy.

More recently, she is deeply aware of her own mortality. She said, ‘In Britain, it’s really weird: It’s not even like I’m an artist. It’s like I’m sort of a mascot, like a national treasure of sorts. The last thing they would want is for me to drop dead. But I think I was really lucky with the cancer, the fact that I had it during lockdown, because I didn’t miss anything. Then the other thing is no one missed me because everybody was missing each other. I could be really ill and nearly die in private and then come back to life in public.’

Her work today, as seen at her current exhibition at White Cube Gallery, reflects that tenacity and pain which has always shaped her lived experience. You can tell this is a different version of Tracey she is revealing to the public that they have yet to see, and there is no hiding this evolved version of her.

When speaking about her new exhibition at White Cube with Art Forum, Tracey describes, ‘It's about following something or someone as far as you possibly can and then realising that there's an end and there's nowhere else to go. That's what happens in life. It happens in death. It happens in love. It happens with many, many things. If you see the work, the paintings, you'll see that it's quite sad, a lot of it. It isn't as tough as I normally am. Part of that though was because I had cancer and I was going to die. I had six months to live. It was at that point I thought ‘omg what have I done with my life?’. And it's true, when you go to the lowest points in your life, like I actually saw death it was there right in front of me. And I thought ‘oh if I get through this one, I'm going to change everything.’ I've never been so prolific in my whole life, and I'm physically weak.’

The entire gallery was dedicated to this exhibition and was heavily charged. It was hard to not walk away feeling emotionally exposed to the world after my time there. You had to address those emotions and contemplate that level of loss, sadness, and pain she so fervently and clearly expressed onto canvas, bronze, and video. It would have been difficult to carry on with the rest of your day if one didn't address those feelings.

And yet, while Emin is completely un-shy about displaying negativity and pain, she doesn't let it control her. She comes across as deeply feeling, but not angry. It's an unusual combination; it's far more common to pair pain with bitterness, trauma with emasculation, emotion with confusion. I think Tracey's ability to emote while maintaining coherence goes a long way to explaining her success and durability.

Phew, That Was Deep, Let's Do Some Maths

Okay, breathe. We've done a lot of deep work today, processed a few feelings. Time to run away and seek some comfort in maths!

I'm only half-joking... In a recent interview, Emin said something very interesting about the trajectory and artistic production of male and female artists, so I thought I'd take a look at the data.

‘Well, I think women are doing a lot better than men. Men peak between the age of 40 and 50, and women peak between the age of 50 and 80. Men have one big giant ejaculation, and women come and come and come again. So this is why if you are a female artist and you’re doing okay at 50, you’re going to be doing quite good at 60, fucking excellent at 70, and out of this world at 80 and 90. One of my first and best artist friends in New York was Louise Bourgeois. There were 50 years between us, but she was a big inspiration because there she was, 97, still going for it, still cracking it out, still thinking. If I can be like that, it means I’ve got only halfway through my career.’

She continues this thread in a recent podcast going as far to state most male artists, including her contemporary Damien Hirst, are less of a creative ‘force’ after 40. This intrigued me and I had to do some digging to see if there was actually any truth behind those words. It’s so lovely and artistically vague at the same time to get insight like that from an artist. Just because statistics and numbers are fun to see, let's take a look at Damien and Tracey’s performance in recent years.

The most expensive work sold by Damien Hirst was The Golden Calf at a Sotheby’s auction in 2018 that fetched £10.3M (US$14.4M). The average value of Damien Hirst's artwork has experienced a 4.5% compound annual growth rate over the last 5 years, with signed limited edition prints selling for anywhere between £700 and £151,200 at auction in 2022.

To be honest, the recent data doesn't really support her assertion: both Emin and Hirst are about 60 years old, and both are doing fine in the art market. There's certainly no real evidence of a decline in Hirst's financial popularity after he turned 50: like most assets, he's off the pandemic era highs, but still at least where he was pre-COVID.

Frankly, she would hate me saying that and would most likely tell me to f*ck off. Her art is as much a personal journey as it is a documented diary of her life, and for it to be stripped of its emotional value strips the art of its true meaning and intention to determine its financial value. Especially when emotion and personal appeal is a huge driver of price in the art world.

Conclusion

As much as I love numbers and what they reveal, I prefer talking about the art itself, and hearing what the artist has to say about their own practice. I believe Hirst and Emin are both artistic forces to be reckoned with in incredibly different ways. Their success in this field is reflected in the charts above, as is their ability to still resonate with contemporary society through the art they produce 30 years later. It shows Emin's thoughtful nature as an artist when she considers those around her. It is a shared space and shared experience they’ve had a front row seat to.

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