Tracey Emin by Jonathan Jones
Tracey Emin by Jonathan Jones
This monograph on the artist Tracey Emin by art critic Jonathan Jones was published at the end of November 2020, so represents, as of this writing, about as up to date reckoning of her work as available.
It concludes with an examination the new work exhibited at her 2019 show at London’s White Cube Gallery.
Where it starts is with what survives of her student work and moves briskly through her career. The author provides a competent assessment of the art without too much obtuse ‘art-speak’. The pertinent historical references to other artworks are to the point and are adequately illustrated.
Given the briefness of the text, the majority of the book’s 121 pages are given over to reproductions of Emin’s art, it’s to the author’s credit that he makes room for the consideration of her early pre-fame work. Her graphic work of this period, print making and drawing, show an innate facility that isn’t facile. It’s interesting to see how this adeptness pays forward in her mature work where she has moved beyond her earlier influences.
Much has been written about Emin’s difficult childhood and chaotic and troubled teenage years. Jones begins with her starting to find her way as a young adult. In these years, through her engagement in art education, she has now found a way to organise and process the traumatic aspects of her life.
Making those traumas public, and Emin’s frankness about her sexual experiences, would, in other circumstances, come across as narcissistically prurient. What saves Emin from that is, in her best work, the sense of conviction that is its honest, autobiographical, and necessary, content.
I have put the qualification ‘in her best work’ above, because I was less than convinced by everything in her recent exhibition at White Cube. The room full of large photographic self-portraits documenting her insomnia struck me as self-indulgent. Perhaps it was the large scale of the images. I’m not convinced by her efforts at sculpture either.
I’ve made those criticisms here because Jonathan Jones doesn’t in his book. This overview of Tracey Emin’s work would have benefited from a more critical stance. The author certainly demonstrates that he possesses the sensitivity and in-sight to have presented a more rounded assessment of this artist’s achievements.
Please note; as reflected in its price, this is not a ‘coffee table’ size book. The reproduction quality of the artwork is, for the most part, adequate. Some the illustrations, particularly of the watercolours, suffer from the smallness of scale and some of the reproduction of photographic work and film stills is ‘muddy’.
Published in paperback by Laurence King Publishing at £14.99 and $19.99 in the USA
Tracey Emin / Edvard Munch - The Loneliness of the Soul by Brandtzaeg, Delaney, Fuchs
Shaping the World: Sculpture from Prehistory to Now by Antony Gormley and Martin Gayford
Both the above books are discussed in the blog post: The Art of Conversation About Art
https://www.bookswithbob.com/blog/q0pgqsdj3qq4q0z37c8g5j3nvs6t5s