Customer Reviews

Tracey Emin: Works 1963-2006

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Tracey Emin is one of the most important artists to emerge on the art scene in quite some time. The very fact that her work is questioned as to its artistic value confirms its success - it challenges and provokes, which I think is one of art's noblest aims.

Tracey Emin is like a female Matthew Barney or Damien Hirst, only her art is in no way similar. While Damien Hirst is standoffish and almost detached in an omnipotent role from his art, in the creator role, Tracey Emin and her art are one in the same. She is in her art; she is her art. Her work is not some nice pretty water lilies under a beautiful bridge. Her works are more often profanity-laced pencil scrawlings of herself naked with most of the focus on her [...]. They often look like dirty pictures that a teen boy would draw, complete with misspellings. It can be a bit disarming to see discussions of [...] in bright neon (literally).

Not universally accessible, but uniformly powerful, I find her work to be consequential and thought-provoking. This book does a very good job of introducing us to her work.

This large hardbound volume of Tracey Emin's works contains photos of her numerous controversial works of art and two very well-written essays on her work. I found the closing essay to be particularly powerful; it did not set out to explain her work in a step-by-step way. More important, it placed her work within the broad sweep of art history to explain why profane pencil scribblings, blankets discussing sex, even her infamous soiled bed are indeed art. You may not agree, but this book certainly makes a strong argument for the value of Tracey Emin's work.