Latest news with #DameTraceyEmin
Daily Mail
25-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Dame Tracey Emin praises King Charles for his commitment to the arts as they join prominent figures in the industry to celebrate 25 years of the Royal Drawing School
The King was praised for his commitment to drawing by stars of the arts world tonight as they celebrated 25 years of his Royal Drawing School. Dame Tracey Emin said the country was 'lucky to have' a monarch who cared so much, while eclectic cross-dressing potter Grayson Perry described him as 'very special'. The pair both sported what appeared to be the fashionable footwear of the night at St James's Palace - plastic Crocs. While Emin sported dark coloured footwear, Perry naturally sported a brightly-painted pair of iconic clogs to offset his bright orange dress. The palace was packed with renowned artists, creative figures and alumni of the school founded by Charles, 76, as Prince of Wales. To mark the occasion a special anniversary exhibition has been created 'The Power of Drawing: Marking 25 Years of the Royal Drawing School' which includes works by 50 eminent artists and alumni from the school's twenty five year history including Emin and David Hockney. Another star exhibit is one of the King's own drawings, a preliminary sketch of Highgrove from 2000. The free exhibition will go on display at the Royal Drawing School in Shoreditch from July 1- 26. Founded with the help and guidance of artist Catherine Goodman, the Royal Drawing School has made a significant contribution to art education. As an independent, not-for-profit institution, it remains dedicated to high-quality observational drawing tuition. The King, who was accompanied by Queen Camilla, her art dealer daughter Laura Lopes and his artist cousin, Lady Sarah Chatto, spent more than an hour examining the works that will go on display and chatting to guests. A live-drawing session involving some of the school's youngest talents went on throughout the evening, before the guests sat down to listen to a performance by singer songwriter Rufus Wainwright, whose artwork is also being displayed, with a film of work by alumni playing behind him. In an impromptu speech the King offered an unusually emotional tribute to Goodman for her work with the school over the years. He said: 'I can't resist saying a few very small words because above all I wanted to pay a very special tribute to darling Catherine who, can you believe it, it all goes back really to when my very special cousin, Sarah [Chatto], and Catherine were young 18-year-old students at Camberwell School of Art and used to come bouncing in to my room. I remember that was where it all started. 'So when I needed somebody to start the life drawing classes at my original old Institute of Architecture in Regent's Park, I thought Catherine is the ideal person. Otherwise these young trainee architects won't understand the importance of life drawing in terms of proportion, scale and everything else. 'Her dedication and her love for the students created this remarkable, I hope, legacy which will continue. So we do all owe her a huge debt of gratitude. The King, who was accompanied by Queen Camilla, her art dealer daughter Laura Lopes and his artist cousin, Lady Sarah Chatto, spent more than an hour examining the works that will go on display and chatting to guests In an impromptu speech the King offered an unusually emotional tribute to Goodman for her work with the school over the years 'Imagine, just perhaps, how proud I am am of all these students over all these years. I have always believed in investing in talent for the future in many different spheres, particularly in the cultural world but also in all sorts of others. 'So see these young people develop into middle aged people still painting is remarkable and achieving so much and I hope enabling them to discover and develop and demonstrate their remarkable talents. It's an investment that has been rewarded a thousand fold. ' Dame Tracey Emin spoke warmly about the King, whom she has known for several years. 'It's thrilling, so nice. His speech was from the heart. He knows what he is talking about,' he said. 'Imagine how lucky we are to have a king who loves art and knows what he is talking about. His is a very nice drawing, it's a sketch, very loose, very nice.' Gesturing to the display, she added: 'I am hanging next door but one to the king. It's not often that you can say that. 'His time and energy is phenomenal. Drawing is more important than it ever was. We are going through such terrible times at the moment and we are so lucky to have a King who has such a great understanding of many different things, and to be here tonight talking about drawing and art gives you faith in humanity. We people are drawing or painting or making art, they are not going to war. ' Her words were echoed by Wainright, who also attended art college, and told the audience between songs: 'All I wanted to say is that drawing for me now has become a necessary tool to really save my mind from all the distractions that we are faced with in the world. It's more important than ever for people to draw and focus on what isn't there.' Goodman paid tribute to the King as a man who 'never minded swimming against the tide' when he started the drawing school, which does not receive any official funding but relied on donations. She added: 'He decided to give drawing a home and a place for students to come and learn. To make sure this important living tradition was celebrated and protected. ' With over 350 different courses for adults and children of all abilities, including a renowned full-year postgraduate-level programme and a wide range of scholarships, the Royal Drawing School is accessible to all regardless of background or circumstance.
Forbes
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Tracey Emin, Sex & Solitude At Palazzo Strozzi: A Bold Symphony Of Love, Loss & Survival
Tracey Emin and Arturo Galansino at Palazzo Strozzi on the occasion of the exhibition Sex and Solitude. Palazzo Strozzi, Firenze, 2025. Photo Ludovica Arcero, Saywho. Tracey Emin's solo exhibition Sex and Solitude at Florence's Palazzo Strozzi is a profound and intimate exploration of the human condition, presented through over 60 works that span her prolific career. Curated by Arturo Galansino–Director General of the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi–the exhibition runs until 20th July, 2025 and offers a deeply personal yet universally resonant journey into themes of love, loss, and healing. Tracey Emin: Sex and Solitude is the first major institutional exhibition in Italy dedicated to globally celebrated British artist Dame Tracey Emin. The exhibition's titular themes of sex and solitude are explored through drawings, paintings, photography, embroidery, appliqué, sculptures, and neon installations. Emin's art has always been confessional and raw, and throughout her prolific career she has worn her heart on her sleeve and channelled her experiences of love, lust, passion, illness and recovery into her art. Tracey Emin I waited so Long 2022 acrylic on canvas 183.1 × 183.3 × 3.5 cm Private Collection c/o Xavier Hufkens GalleryCourtesy © Tracey Emin. All rights reserved, DACS 2025. Photo HV-Studio. Since causing a stir in the 90s as one of the founder 'YBAs' and exhibiting her controversial, groundbreaking 1995 artwork Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963-1995–followed by celebrity status and an outspoken appearance on Newsnight–Emin has developed into something of a national treasure in the UK–particularly in her home town of Margate where she has opened the Tracey Karima Emin (TKE) Studios in Margate, a professional artist's studios entirely subsidized by her, with an art school programme called Tracey Emin Artist Residency (TEAR). The British establishment finally stepped up and paid attention to Emin's artistic genius and contribution to the arts in general–and regeneration through the arts of Margate in particular–making her a Dame of the British Empire in 2024. Emin has a long overdue retrospective coming up in February 2026 at Tate Modern, yet–despite an exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts where her work was juxtaposed with Egon Schiele's in 2021-Emin hasn't had a major solo show in a UK institution yet (although she did represent Great Britain at the Venice Biennale in 2007). So the Palazzo Strozzi were ahead of the curve when Director Arturo Galansino invited Emin to present a one-woman survey exhibition at the esteemed Florentine museum. The Italian art world has recognised that Emin is a master of her oeuvre and crowned her with a stunning exhibition in the birthplace of art history–Firenze. Tracey Emin Naked photos – Life Model Goes Mad I 1996 giclée on photo rag paper 53,5 × 53 cm edition of 3, with 2AP Courtesy of the Artist © Tracey Emin. All rights reserved, DACS 2025. Photo © White Cube (Theo Christelis) I spoke to Palazzo Strozzi director Arturo Galansino in Florence about his collaborative vision with Emin on the monumental exhibition, which has been three years in the making. The exhibition at Palazzo Strozzi features a wide range of works by Tracey Emin dating back to her early career through to new works recently exhibited at White Cube in London. So how did Galansino so skilfully curate this survey show from such a wide date range and variety of artworks? Arturo Galansino: 'The exhibition is the result of a long collaboration and discussion with Tracey Emin and her studio director Harry Weller, who is a very important figure. We started this discussion between me, Tracey and Harry about what to put in this exhibition. There are some very recent works, especially the monumental sculpture in the courtyard, which was exhibited at White Cube last autumn and now belongs to the Voorlinden museum in the Netherlands. There are also some very early works. That reflects my desire to give as complete image of Tracey as possible. We have a very diverse range of visitors to Palazzo Strozzi, so our idea was to offer a very complete image of the artist, which makes sense because Florence is where art history was invented. So we want to say that the contemporary artist enters into art history. So the idea was to have a complete portrait of the work of Tracey Emin.' Galansino worked closely with Tracey on the exhibition, visiting her studio in London and creating a maquette of Palazzo Strozzi's galleries envisioning the exhibition's curation. There are works from collections as far afield as Asia and Australia on display at Palazzo Strozzi. Tracey Emin "Sex & Solitude" at Palazzo Strozzi, Florence. Photo © Lee Sharrock Sex and Solitude is a rather melancholy, emotionally charged title and Emin really wears her heart on her sleeve through the exhibition. I ask Galansino who came up with the title: 'The title was totally her decision. It's part of her practice: Tracey always starts a project with a title. It's broader than that because words are the starting point. In the exhibition you can see that words are central. She had to think about what she wants to say with this show. So she came up with this very poetic title which is made by two opposite poles of her practice–sex, her senses, the wild life of her youth, and how sex is still an inspiration and important part of her life and work–and solitude. Solitude is the other side of the coin, because she needs to be alone to work. Solitude is not seen as a negative word, but in the sense that philosophers, artists and artists need to be alone to work. The word solitude is also of course related to the very dramatic illness that she had. And she speaks about the how the sickness affected her private and personal life.' Tracey Emin Thriving on Solitude 2020 acrylic on canvas 30.7 x 30.7 x 2.2 cm Private collection © Tracey Emin. All rights reserved, DACS 2025. A Raw and Unflinching Artistic Journey Emin's art is renowned for its candidness and vulnerability, transforming personal experiences into powerful visual narratives. Her draughtsmanship and effortless ability to capture languid nude forms possesses echoes of the drawings of Egon Schiele–an early 20th century artist she has been deeply influenced by–and also evoke the raw honesty of Gustave Courbet's controversial 1866 painting L'Origine du Monde, which depicted with startling realism the naked pubis of a female nude. Many of the nude drawings and paintings exhibited at Palazzo Strozzi follow the lineage of iconic masters of life drawing from art history, yet Emin puts her own stamp on images of the female nude, refocussing the male gaze with large-scale self-portraits painted with a palette of crimson red and a melancholy blue–perhaps a representation of Emin's near-death experience which involved invasive operations on her body–visceral lines of paint outlining reclining a solitary reclining nude figure and running down the canvas like so many tears. Galansino reflects on the bravery Emin displays through her art: 'She's very brave, very honest, very direct. It's something that our public have never seen before–an artist who is so bold and so willing to open her heart and speak about herself with no filter.' Tracey Emin Exorcism of the last painting I ever made 1996 performance / installation internal dim. 350 x 430 x 430 cm Courtesy of Schroeder Collection and Faurschou Collection © Tracey Emin. All rights reserved, DACS 2025. Courtesy White Cube Sex & Solitude delves into Emin's personal experiences, including her battle with cancer, which profoundly influenced her recent works. A series of paintings from this period, characterized by a melancholic blue-grey palette, reflect her isolation and introspection during recovery. These pieces, along with others like Love Poem for CF (2007)–a neon work dedicated to her great love of the '90s–and Exorcism of the Last Painting I Ever Made (1996), an immersive installation documenting a pivotal performance in Emin's career, offer a glimpse into her emotional and physical journey and are testament to her unfiltered expression. Galansino started working on the exhibition in 2022 and approached it as a survey show rather than a retrospective. He explained: 'It's not a retrospective of course; it's more a survey. And it's not chronological, it's thematical. I think it works very well, because it presents the consistency of Tracey on different topics through almost four decades, because we are spanning from the 90s until now.' A Dialogue with the Renaissance At Palazzo Strozzi Emin's monumental bronze sculpture I Followed You to the End (2024) dominates the Renaissance courtyard, presenting a fragmented female form that contrasts starkly with Florence's classical art, emphasizing themes of vulnerability and resilience. The vast sculpture was exhibited at White Cube in 2024 and recalls Egon Schiele's drawing of a nude woman bent over and viewed from behind, creating a dichotomy of vulnerability and longing. This powerful introduction sets the tone for an astonishing and brave exhibition which delves deep into the psyche of the artist and addresses universal themes of love, lust, loss, illness and fear. Emin's bold sculpture has been installed in the courtyard of Palazzo Strozzi as a public sculpture and holds its own in a historic city known for some of the most breathtaking Renaissance architecture and sculpture. Tracey Emin 'Sex & Solitude' at Palazzo Strozzi, Florence. Photography © Lee Sharrock Sex and Solitude is not only a reflection of Emin's personal narrative but also engages in a dialogue with the Renaissance tradition embodied in the architecture of Palazzo Strozzi. Her works, often characterized by bold colors and energetic gestures, juxtapose the classical art of Florence. Reinforcing the artistic lineage between the Renaissance and Contemporary, Emin's exhibition will be followed by a once-in-a-lifetime exhibition of Fra Angelico, opening on 26th September, 2025. Themes of Love, Loss, and Healing Inside Palazzo Strozzi the exhibition features embroidery, neons, paintings, works on paper curated to represent the opposing yet intertwined poles of sex and solitude, which form the core of Emin's practice. A room inside the exhibition is dominated by a huge neon 'Love Poem' from 2007 with the words You put your hand across my mouth but still the noise continues. Every party of my body is screaming. Smashed into a thousand million pieces. Each pant for ever belonging to you. Emin's love of neon stems from her childhood in British seaside Town Margate and she transforms it into an autobiographical form of visual poetry by creating neon's with her handwriting captured in pink neon. Emin's poetry captures the raw passion bordering on fear of a sexual encounter, and a 2020 painting Coming Down From Love is emblazoned with the words I Wanted You To Fuck Me So Much I Couldn't Paint Any More, representing pure longing and all-encompassing desire with abstract expressionist brushstrokes. A 2009 artwork embroidered with the words I Keep Loving You in pretty pink hues uses textiles to create a calmer, more subdued frame of mind resigned to the acceptance of loving someone. Another highlight is a 2002 textile artwork titled I do Not Expect, a large pink blanket appliquéd with the words 'I do not expect to be a Mother, but I do expect to die Alone', which addresses Emin's experiences of miscarriage and the lost opportunity of becoming a Mother, and also society's expectations of women and the expectation of Motherhood. Tracey Emin I do not expect 2002 appliquéd blanket 264 x 185 cm Sidney, Art Gallery of New South Wales. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program by Geoff Ainsworth AM 2018 © Tracey Emin. All rights reserved, DACS 2025. Photo © Stephen White. Courtesy White Cube President of the Palazzo Strozzi foundation Giuseppe Morbidelli says in the exhibition catalogue: 'Emin's strongly autobiographical approach encourages the public to deal with emotions and experiences that usually remain buried deep inside, transforming them into highly symbolic and enlightening existential metaphors–also for this reason the exhibition is helpful in knowing oneself.' Concluding the exhibition are several works made by Emin following her invasive cancer surgery in 2020. In response to the life-changing surgery, Emin created monotype prints exploring the trauma of illness and recovery in a sombre palette of blacks and grays in the tradition of Goya and Manet. Although monochrome in palette, at the heart of these works is Emin's joy at being alive and celebration of the life-affirming power of art. Tracey Emin's Sex and Solitude at Palazzo Strozzi is a compelling exhibition that invites visitors into the artist's world of raw emotion and introspection. Through her unflinching honesty and diverse artistic mediums, Emin creates a space for reflection on the complexities of the human experience. Sex and Solitude is a must-see for those interested in contemporary art that challenges conventions and speaks to the heart. Emin's ability to express a huge range of emotions and encapsulate so many universal themes in her art is what makes her art so engaging and so timeless, and she fully deserves her place in the canon of art history, cemented by this once in a lifetime exhibition at Palazzo Strozzi where some of the most iconic artists originated. Tracey Emin. Sex and Solitude is at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence until 20th July, 2025.
