Cathy's Art Diary

Badly designed exhibition at Tate Modern presenting work by Tracey Emin over 40 years. I found the show badly arranged and claustrophobic. There are video installations on the main walk through not inside rooms so the pathway fills up and if you don’t want to stand and watch you have to push through. A lot of the art is quite wordy so people stand for ages trying to make out the handwriting. There are no information boards just labels. Are we meant to use an app instead? Please make that clear if that is correct? It assumed people already knew Emin’s story, which I did, but if you didn’t you might feel quite lost and the work could feel random. I wonder if it’s deliberate in a show full of angst to try to induce anxiety. I lasted 20 minutes. I’m not a great fan of Emin’s work as I find it quite introspective but often individual pieces can be very moving and these shine through. It was lovely to see the bed again and I loved a crucifixion painting. I liked the quilts but in th...

Repetitive exhibition at White Cube Bermondsey of new work by Tracey Emin. I try to like Emin’s work and do admire the free mark making but find them too introspective to be viewed on mass. Any individual one in show would make an interesting point but together I get a bit bored. I liked the inclusion of a big sculpture with the same title as the show which I thought I’d seen there before but checking I realise this is a new work. Closed 10 November 2024 Reviews Times Telegraph Evening Standard l

Fun offerings from contemporary artists in lockdown. I’ve been enjoying the new works of art artists are offering pictures of or downloads of during the Covid-19 lockdown. I loved Banksy’s witty redecoration of his bathroom captioned “My wife hates it when I work from home” shown here. It’s so witty and beautifully done but with that added sense of desperation we all feel of what on earth can I do now! Damien Hirst has produced a new butterfly picture called “Rainbow Butterflies” a limited edition of which will be sold for NHS charities but he has also provided a free downloadable poster version. I had only recently blogged his White Cube exhibition of butterfly mandalas so I was particularly excited to see this.   Tracey Emin did a seven day lockdown diary on Instagram, written thoughts, images and short film from her bathroom and studio, commissioned by White Cube. I’m not convinced thoughts on an art work are an art work in itself but then I often won...

Introspective exhibition at White Cube, Bermondsey of new work by Tracey Emin. I have to admit I didn’t like most of this work. I am sure I am meant to find it as a profound insight into the human condition but I find it a bit self-indulgent. One room was full of selfies taken during the night when she is suffering from insomnia. I am hoping they were a clever reference back to her earlier unmade bed work but I a shallow part of me did want to point out that maybe if she wasn’t playing with her phone she might get to sleep. I don’t like her paintings. Again I am sure they are profound but I find them rather messy and without titles I’m not sure I’d know what they were about. However I did like the central video installation called “The Ashes”, a short piece, which focused on her mother’s ashes on a table in her home moving around them, and the large sculpture “The Mother” which relates to her public commission due to be installed outside the Edvard Munch Museum in Oslo....

New permanent installation at St Pancras by Tracey Emin. This is one of Emin’s neoo signs which says “I want my time with you” in her handwriting. It hangs over the exit from the Eurostar platforms close to Paul Day’s huge statue “The Meeting Place”. The statue and installation work well together with the latter almost offering a commentary on the former.   I’m not a big Emin fan but this if a nice addition to the interior of this impressive station. Reviews Telegraph Evening Standard  

New display at Tate Britain curated by Tracey Emin to mark the return of her bed to the gallery. She includes some of her recent figure drawings in the room along with some paintings by Francis Bacon. In the commentary it says that both Emin and Bacon “retain a strong sense of the lived presence and memory traces of past events”. I guess that means they try to capture a moment in time while recognising that by definition by the time it is recorded it is past. Showing the bed with the Bacon’s does give a sense of what the purpose of it might have been but I’m not sure they sit well together. As for the bed itself, I get what it’s trying to do, I admire what it’s trying to do, I’m just not sure I want to look at it! I guess the optimist in me would want to pick a happier, tidier moment to record. Maybe mine would be called “My bed on a Tuesday after the cleaner’s been”! She does plump the pillows up really nicely and I do like nice bedding! Reviews Independe...

Mixed exhibition at White Cube Bermondsey of recent work by Tracey Emin. I must admit I went along expecting to be annoyed by this show and I actually came away quite liking some of the work but with reservations. One or two drawings of a naked female figure would be nice, 24 becomes a bit samey! Also I loved the embroidered large versions of these pictures in the 9x9x9 gallery but as these were not worked by Emin herself maybe they are just copies of her work in another form not a different form! I have a bit of a thing about wanting to see the hand of the artist in a work and the role of craft but that’s my argument with conceptual art as a whole not just this work! Ok I’ll be more positive now! I did like some of the sculptures, although I question why some of them were painted white and looked a bit cheap. I loved the small figures of a lamb and a lion on plinths at either end of a long table which I assume was saying something about ‘the lion shall lay down with the l...