Tracey Emin: Exorcism of the Last Painting I Ever Made at Faurschou New York

This October, Faurschou New York is pleased to present acclaimed British artist Tracey Emin’s seminal work, Exorcism of the Last Painting I Ever Made, marking the first time this work of art will be exhibited in the United States.

In 1996, British artist Tracey Emin locked herself naked in an enclosed room setting at a gallery in Stockholm for 3 weeks to reconcile with her anxieties and guilt around painting, a medium she had abandoned 6 years prior. Visitors were able to follow glimpses of Emin’s process through fish-eye lenses in the exterior walls of the room. After a traumatic period in the early 90s with two abortions, Tracey Emin could not physically stand the thought of painting and wanted to face her troubled relationship with the medium. Through fish-eye lenses in the exterior walls of the room, visitors could follow glimpses of Emin’s process. The entire collection of artworks and objects in the room were preserved as an installation, which are exhibited here in their original constellation.

The paintings and drawings that Emin created in the process refer to and appropriate works by male artists Egon Schiele, Yves Klein, Edvard Munch, and Pablo Picasso. Historically, women’s access to the artist’s studio have been as models, not artists. The representation of women has been a male affair, where the female nude stands out as the most distinct example of the objectification of the female body. Further, Emin documented the performance in the photographic series The Life Model Goes Mad, in which she takes on the role of the model in her own studio, reclaiming female identity and sexuality. Exorcism of the Last Painting I Ever Made stands out as a pivotal work and predecessor to a line of works, in which Emin uses her own life, trauma, and emotions as a means of expression, with the most widely recognized piece being My Bed (1998). In this work, Emin positions herself in the double role as both model and artist, challenging the universal acceptance of women as objects of the male gaze. This exhibition at Faurschou New York marks the first time that this seminal work of art is exhibited in the United States.

About Tracey Emin Tracey Emin was born in 1963 in London. She currently lives and works between London, the South of France, and Margate, UK.

Emin has exhibited extensively including major exhibitions at Munchmuseet, Oslo (2021); Royal Academy of Arts, London (2020); Musée d’Orsay, Paris (2019); Château La Coste, Aix-en-Provence, France (2017); Leopold Museum, Vienna (2015); Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami (2013); Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (2012); Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK (2012); Hayward Gallery, London (2011); Kunstmuseum Bern (2009); Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh (2008); Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, Malaga, Spain (2008); Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (2003); and Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2002).

In 2007 Emin represented Great Britain at the 52nd VeniceBiennale and her installation My Bed has been included in ‘In Focus’ displays at Tate Britain with Francis Bacon (2015), Tate Liverpool with William Blake and also at Turner Contemporary, Margate alongside JMW Turner (2017).

In 2011, Emin was appointed Professor of Drawing at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, and in 2012 was made Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for her contributions to the visual arts.

Tracey Emin’s expressive and visceral art is one of disclosure, dealing with personal experience and heightened states of emotion. Frank and intimate but universal in its relevance, her work draws on the fundamental themes of love, desire, loss and grief, unravelling in the process the nuanced constructs of ‘woman’ and ‘self’ through probing self-exploration. ‘The most beautiful thing is honesty, even if it’s really painful to look at’, she has remarked.

Wide-ranging in scope, Emin’s practice includes painting, drawing, film, photography, sewn appliqué, sculpture and neon, all of which are transformed into highly personalised mediums for her singular voice. The genres of self-portraiture and the nude run throughout, both intricately bound up with the emotional journey of her life and the travails of her own biography. In her early work, often characterised by unflinching personal revelation, Emin makes reference to her family, childhood, and chaotic teenage years growing up in the seaside town of Margate. Her relationships, pregnancies and abortions are recounted through drawings, photographs, found objects and videos in a manner that is neither tragic nor sentimental and which resonates deeply with the audience.