Tracy Emin - A Second Life

A Second Life by Tracy Emin

at Tate Modern.

I have to start by saying that I am not doing this exhibition justice in this post. We went to Tate Modern to see Nigerian Modernism and Theatre Picasso, and thought we would have a look at the Tracy Emin exhibition. I knew I would not be impressed by it, and my fears were confirmed. I was basically bored. This, of course, is not the first exhibition I have been to that I have found boring, or not to my taste, but usually, if that is the case, I just don't blog about it. In Emin's case however, given how central she is to contemporary art in this country, I have decided to do a post. I have chosen a minimal number of exhibits just so that I have a reminder.

The second thing I would like to say about the exhibition is that it was packed - absolutely bursting with people. The room where they were showing a film about Emin was so full, you could not go through it. Nigerian Modernism had an average kind of crowd, and Theatre Picasso had a lot of people. But, this was absolutely bursting. I knew Emin was a popular artist, but this was incredible. 

My Major Retrospective II, 1982-1992, 2008, (180 photographs, canvas, card, wooden shelves, ink)

These tiny photographs, mounted on stitched fabric, document Emin's art school paintings. After an abortion in 1990, and experiencing what she has described as her 'emotional suicide', she destroyed the originals.

looking closer

looking closer

My Future, 1993, (passport, human tooth, ink on paper)

There's a Lot of Money in Chairs, 1994, (appliqued armchair)

'It's not what you inherit, it's what you do with your inheritance. I inherited my great-gramdnother's armchair. My nan said to me 'there's a lot of money in chairs' - she meaent people stuffed money in chairs, not that the chair is money, but I took it like 'yeah, it's my inheritance, what do I do with it?' So what I decided to do was make it more than it is. I decorated it with my life story...

I wrote the book Exploration of the Soul, went around America, with the chair and book, doing readings to American people...'

I Needed You to Love Me, 2023, (acrylic on canvas)

Rape, 2018, (acrylic on canvas)

Trinity Hill, 2019, (acrylic on canvas)

You Heard me Scream, 2022, (acrylic on canvas)

I Never Asked to Fall in Love - You Made me Feel like This, 2018, (acrylic on canvas)

My Bed, 1998

looking closer

You Kept it Coming, 2019, (acrylic on canvas)

The End of Love, 2016, (acrylic on paper)

Not Fuckable, 2024, (acrylic on canvas)

And So it Felt Like This, 2018, (acrylic on paper)

You Should Have Saved Me, 2023, (acrylic on canvas)

The Crucifixion, 2022, (acrylic on canvas)




 

Diamond Matrix - Studio Irma

Diamond Matrix by Studio Irma, at Moco Museum, Barcelona.

Boring as a blog post, but this is the best way for me to remember. We really enjoyed this. An installation of hundreds of light-up diamonds that were everywhere, around us, above us and below.  It was lovely walking around, and just being in it.

looking up

 

Moco Museum, Barcelona

Moco Museum, Barcelona.

Seen as Barcelona's trendiest Museum, the Moco features contemporary art, street art, immersive installations  and photography. It opened in 2021. This is just a very small selection of what was on offer.

Miranda Makaroff, Belle Jin Shuan, 2023, (hand-made cotton and wool rug)

Keith Haring, Sans Titre, 1982, (red tarp)

Keith Haring, Dog & Snamke Human Large, 1980, (white chalk on black paper)

A confrontation: serpent-headed figures with mouths open and forked tongues face off against barking dogs, which roar back in defiance. This symbol-charged battleground evokes both ancient myths and modern fears: the snakes recall classical iconography, embodying the dual forces of healing and harm, wisdom and danger, while suggesting the unpredictability of life and death. The dogs, recurring figures throughout Haring's compositions, act as agents of protest, barking against authority and political control. 

Here, Haring represents conflict through visual symbols adapted from ancient mythology and the urban language of 1980s street culture, all reinterpreted to reflect the tensions of his own time, from social inequality to the uncertainty of the late Cold War period.

This work is part of Haring's Subway Drawings, executed deep down in the subway tunnels of New York City, drawings made with a single, bold uninterrupted line. These Subway Drawings record the artist's flow and quick way of working. Now, they are considered to be his purest creations. Although these drawings only ever remained in place for two days to two weeks, it was important for Haring to connect with his audience during the morning commute. Advertising space in the metro was limited and always changing. These authentic works have rarely survived, but this one has.

Hayden Kays, Fact, 2021, (acrylic on canvas)

Jeremy and Sian Walking, 2010, (continuous computer animation)

Takashi Murakami, Pink River, (acrylic on canvas)

When Murakami invented the term Superflat in 2001, he launched on of postmodern art's most exciting and refreshing art movements. Influenced by the Post WWII manga and anime craze, Superflat' references both the two-dimensional quality of traditional Japanese painting and the shallow qualities of consumer culture. As much as this piece appears super-flat, the artist lays out a visual explosion where supreme god-like animals rule and feast on wild colour.

Damien Hirst, Politeness, 2021,  (laminated giclee print on aluminium)

This work is part of Hirst's The Virtues series, inspired by the Eight Virtues of Bushido, the ethical code of the samurai based on principles such as justice, mercy and loyalty, among others. Politeness, one of these virtues, is here translated into visual form. 

Robin Kid (a.k.a. The Kid), Destroy me, 2019, (oil and egg tempera on canvas)

Drawing from the world of advertising, the Internet, television and imagery from the past and present, these works question our polarised world of the 21st century and the thin frontier between innocence and corruption confronting today's youth.

Salvador Dali, Marilyn Monroe, 1972, (flexiglass, oil, nylon thread, metal on wood)

Dali reinterprets Marilyn Monroe into a composition of visual distortions, creating a dialogue berween celebrity,  perception, and the materiality of art. In the 1970s, he experimented with new media and sculptural techniques, seeking ways to expand visual possibilities and challenge traditional portraiture.

In this work Dali blends Surrealist language with the formal experimentation that defined his later career. By fracturing Monroe's features, including her  lips and eyes, into a series of flating forms and magnified contours, he reduces her to her most emblematic traits, reflecting society's tendency to focus on surface appearances while overlooking the complexity of the individual. Does this image reveal Monroe herself, or just the projection of her image that the world sees?

Yayoi Kusama, Pumpkin (White), 1992, (screeprint)

Kaws, Watching, 2022, (cast silicon bronze and acrylic polyurethane sign paint)

Kaws, Man's Best Friend Sofa

Yannis Gaitis - Juvenilia

Yannis Gaitis - Juvenilia at the Benaki Museum, Pireos, Athens.

This exhibition covered the work of eleven Greek artists who were influenced by the major events of the 20th century: WWII, the occupation of Greece by the Germans and the famine that ensued; the Civil War that followed the end of the war, and how it divided the nation; finally the seven years of the military dictatorship that brought so much suffering to the Greek people. 

In the exhibition we were shown how each artist's work developed and changed as they matured and how some moved on to abstraction. I will cover the work of one artist in each post.

Few have captured the alienation of modern drudgery as poignantly as Gaitis. His signature motif, the Little Man, a stylised and archetypal figure in a jacket, tie and hat is anonymous and is depicting the uniformity and sterility of mass living. Using just black, white and primary colours, Gaitis humorously critiqued the impacts of automation and global capitalism on society - and alluded cleverly to the censorhip of public debate by the military dictatorship - with his caricature litle men in suits.

Gaitis' work is flooded with hundreds of  'protagonists' who sometimes we encounter on the surface of a canvas and sometimes they come out of it. You get the feeling that he wishes to open a dialogue with his own interpretation of pop art and his own answers to the great questions of our time. His Little Man, the man without an identity and a wide-brimmed hat and briefcase is expressionless, always lined up in groups.

Gaitis started off with representational art and gradually turned to abstraction and gestural painting. An interest in sculpture was another constant in his career, again focusing on abstraction. The 'Little People' originally appeared on a small scale and from 1967 they became larger and were arranged around a central theme. They became more stylised, faceless, and numerous, denouncing contemporary society. The 2023 exhibition, to mark the centenary of his birth, was called Yannis Gaitis: The Essence of Anonymity  a very apt title, I believe.

Composition, 1962, (mixed media on wood)

Untitled, 1957, (acrylic on canvas)

Myth Anecdote, 1965, (oil on canvas)

looking closer

Motorcyclist, 1967, (oil on canvas)

Chastity or The Beautiful Dulcinea, 1967, (oil on canvas)

Funfair, 1967, (oil on canvas)

Oh Gods, 1980, (oil on canvas)

Shadows of Men, 1971, (installation of painted wood)

looking closer

looking closer

Metro, 1972, (installation of painted wood)