Tracey Emin Won’t Waste Time Being Untruthful

‘Art is probably one of the only things left which exists for its own sake and nothing else,’ Tracey Emin said to a room full of press on the opening of her latest show at White Cube, Bermondsey.

‘As humans, if we are not honest and completely sincere and genuine about why and how art exists, then we are failing on many levels because art is a pure thing that comes from the realm of which we are not completely sure about,’ Emin continued.

‘That’s why we love art. That’s why we think it’s special... I think now, as I’m getting older ... I’m certainly not going to waste time not being completely truthful.’

Honesty and sincerity are principles that have guided the Young British Artist ever since she appliquéd the names of everyone she had ever slept with on a tent that was shown at Charles Saatchi’s Sensation exhibition at the Royal Academy in London in 1997. Emin’s latest solo exhibition at White Cube is, of course, no exception.

I followed you to the end (19 September–10 November 2024) elicits the plaintive anguish wrought from the complexities of love in a presentation of new paintings and sculptures.

‘When you really believe in something or someone, you will do everything and anything for them; you’ll follow them to the complete end,’ Emin said.

The exhibition’s titular painting is a tempest of red and black, with the silhouette of a solitary female figure framed in a scrawled exhortation to the lovers who have mistreated her. Emin never quite knows what she will write on her paintings—it’s an intuitive process that emerges with a level of automation.

Amidst a room of canvases depicting figures in shades of carmine, ivory, and deep blue, a monumental bronze sculpture commands the centre. When navigating around its dimpled form, viewers can detect a figure’s lower anatomy; its upper half buried below the exposed concrete floor.

‘I could have called it anything,’ said Emin. ‘But I Followed You To The End (2024) made sense because the figure is burying her head underground and all that’s left is a big, fat ass sticking up in the air, saying, “I can take this and I can take that.” It made sense to my life.’

Main image: Tracey Emin, I Followed you to the end (2024). Acrylic on canvas. 183.8 x 122 x 4.5 cm (framed). © Tracey Emin. Courtesy White Cube Bermondsey, London