During this episode, I changed my mind about Tracey Emin and started to understand her as an artist who is not necessarily as narcissistic as some see her. Rather she plumbs the depths of her own experience to create works which are multilayered, shocking, challenging, disturbing and sometimes beautiful.
Tracey Emin’s exhibition, A Second Life, is currently running at Tate Modern in London (until August 31 2026). A retrospective of her 40 year career as an artist, it has received rave reviews from most critics.
One of the things that has struck me about the reception of this exhibition is how it shines a light on the way Tracey Emin has transitioned from being one of the most shocking artists of the 1990s, relentlessly exposing her private life, most notably with the Turner Prize nominated installation of My Bed (1998), to now being one of the most successful and highly regarded of contemporary British artists, to the extent she been honored with a CBE and Dame-hood, without compromising her art-making.
So when Professor Jean Wainwright, a specialist in contemporary art who has interviewed Emin a number of times, suggested doing a podcast for Arts First about her exhibition, I leapt at the opportunity.
Much of Emin’s work seems to be focused inwardly on her life and its trials. She ignores or disregards the separation between public and private in a way that can be deeply discomforting to the viewer. Indeed, much of her significance seems to lie in her exposure of her rather troubled private life to public view. Because of this some people think she is hopelessly narcissistic, successful because she reflects the narcissism of the current age. But others regard her as courageously breaking open a sphere that is all too often suppressed, where very personal anxieties, insecurities and experiences that many share are subject to intense levels of self-examination and self-expression.
To explore the significance and impact of her work, Professor Jean Wainwright, art historian and critic starts off an analysis of a small selection of works in the exhibition and what they reveal about Emin as an artist. A very special guest, Jean’s particular expertise is Andy Warhol, and she talked about an exhibition of his work in Milton Keynes for one of our early episodes. She has conducted interviews with Tracey Emin and we are really grateful she offered to come back to help us understand Emin’s importance as an artist.
Commenting and elaborating on Jean’s analysis are Dido Powell and Rachel Jordan, both practicing artists with an active critical interest in contemporary art and art history. Both have appeared on Arts First episodes before, and Dido is the leader of an informative and enjoyable series of tours in London art museums.
There is a tendency — especially among those of us who are not great fans of conceptual art — to define Emin in terms of the reverberating shock of her early installations and her obsession with her damaged self, but for many her work appeals deeply in all its rawness, authenticity and honesty. There is also a tendency, which I shared, to see Emin as a narcissistic artist reflecting and expressing the narcissism of our age. After discussing Emin’s work and achievements with Jean, Dido and Rachel, I now understand her to be an artist who uses her own experiences to create art that plumbs the depths of engaging in a messed up world, living a troubled existence without giving in to it. I don’t love all she has done but I can see that she makes art that mediates and reflects our age back to us in a way that is worth paying close attention to.
Wendy Earle June 2026
The four works we discussed in detail were:
Why I’ll Never Became a Dancer
The film can be viewed on YouTube (after a few ads):
I followed you to the end:
Exorcism of the last Painting I ever made (1996) photo of installation:
You kept it coming (2019)
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