The Brooklyn Rail

At the press conference for her first solo exhibition in New York in almost a decade, Tracey Emin sat beside White Cube’s Global Artistic Director, Susan May, and addressed her audience frankly. She’d survived major surgery, faced mortality and continued making paintings. Some of us knew she was in the process of founding a school. When she told a story about falling in love, she nearly brought herself to tears. Emin’s new paintings embody the energy that carried her through this journey. Serendipitously, a major work from early in Emin’s career, The Exorcism of Last Painting I Ever Made (1996), is also on view in New York. The two shows—one in Brooklyn and one in Manhattan—compliment one another in unexpected ways. Days after the exhibition opening Rail Managing Editor, Charles Schultz, spoke with Emin on the phone about her new paintings, her practice as a writer, and her hopes for the community she is nurturing in the seaside town of Margate.

Charles M. Schultz (Rail): First, I love that you write a column for the Evening Standard. I read that paper every day when I lived in London. In your column after the opening of Lovers Grave, you wrote “never has a show meant so much to me.” I wanted to open our conversation by asking you why?

Emin: Yeah, because—well, you should always say that about your next show, do you know what I mean? [Laughter] Really, every show should feel like that. But to me, this feels like my first show in America, ever.

Rail: Why do you say that?

Emin: Because that’s how it feels. I made lots of mistakes before, showing in America, and I was very misunderstood. And I didn’t spend the time to explain myself. I wasn’t courteous enough to go into dialogue with American people. I thought, oh fuck it. I’m really misunderstood. No one gets me. That’s the end of it. You know? And off I ran.

Rail: For a lot of people, it’s probably their first time seeing your paintings in person.

Emin: That’s what I’m saying. To me, it’s like the first time I’ve shown. I knew people would be looking at it, and people who don’t like me or my work or what I stand for—they would also come and see it. So I wanted to do it the best that I could, in the most clear way that I could, with no frills, with nothing, just me—just my work, me, my hands. What I think, what I do.

And also because Jay Jopling and I have worked together for thirty years. And so it isn’t just my show, it’s Jay’s show as well. It’s the accumulation of everything we worked for. Jay’s sixty, and he’s just opened the White Cube gallery in New York. And I’m sixty, and I feel like it’s my first show in America. So between us, it’s kind of like a really big deal. Before I would have said it didn’t matter to me. But the actual truth is, it really did. But this time more so because I’m doing the best I possibly can. And there’s been a lot of thought put into it. And I’ve worked really hard, you know, and also, my paintings are unapologetic.

Rail: Thirty years. That’s so impressive. Is there a story or anecdote you can share that sort of tells why you and Jay turned out to be so good for one another?

Emin: Oh my God, there’s so many stories. One of my favorites, which I shouldn’t say really, is that one summer we had a massive argument. I mean, a really big falling out. It was about what my show time was going to be at White Cube—when my slot was going to be. I screamed and shouted at him and stormed off, and we didn’t talk to each other for two months, the whole summer. And you know, in August, the artworld goes really quiet. Well at the time Jay was on holiday. And every time Jay would ring the gallery, he’d say, “oh, any news? Any sales?” “Oh yes. Tracey’s got a couple.” And he goes, “Oh. Okay.” And then the next week, he calls and he asks, "any news?" And they go— "yeah, Tracey—Tracey has a few." [Laughter] By the end of August, he was convinced that I was buying my own work. [Laughter]

It is quite a good metaphor, because it’s like whenever Jay thinks I’m failing, I excel. And whenever he looks me down, he surprises me. You know? And together, it’s always—we’re the same age. So a lot of people say to me, “oh, how come you made so many mistakes in your career when you were young?” And that—you know, why didn’t Jay guide you? Because we were out together on the town! We’re the same age, we share life. That’s why it’s unusual that we worked together for thirty years, because there’s a lot of artists who work for a long time with their gallerist. But their gallerist is much older. But with me and Jay it’s not like that. If we have longevity, we will be working together for another thirty years.

Rail: And Jay has always stuck by you.

Emin: Yes. I mean I’ve been able to scream at him, shout at him, cry, get angry, frustrated, you know, whatever. And he has never, ever, considered not working with me. He’s always stuck by me and always—he might have told me off. But he’s always supported me. And that’s what a good gallerist is. A gallerist that understands you and works with you. That’s not to say he hasn’t been critical at times, he definitely has. But both of us have grown. And that’s the important thing. We’ve grown together.

Rail: Another person who was important in your early years was Ken Kiff. You mentioned him in your conversation with White Cube’s Global Artistic Director, Susan May, at the press conference. How did you learn about him? Why did you think he was the right teacher for you?

Emin: In the eighties Ken was a really, really successful artist in Britain. I mean, really successful, probably one of the most successful, and I could see that Ken liked expressionism. I could see that Ken liked Carl Jung—and I read about Ken, you know, and read reviews of his work and stuff. And for me, it really mattered that I’d be working with a tutor, that it would be someone who I responded to and liked. And who I could talk to about things that I enjoyed. And the other person who was my external tutor at Royal College was Paula Rego.

Rail: Interesting.

Emin: Yes, so when you think about it—Ken Kiff and Paula Rego—I was really lucky. Because in the eighties everybody was just moving into sort of like some kind of neo-conceptual, postmodernist ideas. And we really weren’t. [Laughter] And so it was quite good that I had them as tutors because they made me confident in what I did. So I never really changed.

Rail: Was it Ken who gave you the technical foundation for being an oil painter?

Emin: No, not really. That was Alain Miller. So I got this travel scholarship, which was a big deal. I asked, where am I going to go? And they said, you’re coming in here all summer. You’re going to learn everything, how to make stretchers, how to prime a canvas, everything about mixing colors, using linseed oil—everything about painting.

Ken was really amazing with color, he knew everything about color. But Alain was really good with the priming, the linseed oils, all the techniques of painting, what brushes to use—that kind of thing. So you know—it was brilliant. I had like three, four months in the summer of having one to one tutoring constantly. And I was really unhappy at the Royal College of Art, so unhappy. But when I look back on it, oh my god, I learned so much.

Rail: Why were you so unhappy?

Emin: I think it was a big shock for me. The people at the Royal College of Art, the students were very different from me, very different backgrounds, a lot of them. And it was a bit of a shock to my system. Because I’d come from Maidstone, and at Maidstone College of Art, everything was taught on a sort of Marxist doctrine. Even the golden section was, you know, everything. So there was a big thing about equality, equality, equality, regardless of your background, regardless of where you came from. So at Maidstone, you learnt to be very vocal, and talk about your work and you learned to become self-critical as well.

So when I went to Royal College of Art, I thought, wow, if that was my degree, my MA is going to be even better. But it wasn’t. It was very, very traditional. It didn’t have the political thrust, and the art history wasn’t what I was expecting. But what I did do, though, is I took a class on sacred geometry which I really loved and enjoyed.

Rail: That’s an incredible topic. I know it’s important to the work of Dorothea Rockburne as well. I wouldn’t normally think of your work and hers being near one another.

Emin: That’s funny you’re saying that to me now. Ten years ago you never would have said that…. It would never have crossed your mind.

Rail: Why not?

Emin: For one, I didn’t talk to people really, and I knew that I was misunderstood. But instead of trying to explain myself, I just let myself be more misunderstood, if that makes sense.

Rail: Another fact I learned in the press preview was that you took a course in philosophy.

Emin: I just did a part-time philosophy course for two years. It was twice a week, four hours a week, and you had to write an essay and read a book. That’s it, you know, and it really did put my mind into it… it sorted my mind out a lot. It’s like going to the gym for my brain.

At school I left when I was really young. I’ve never excelled in anything academically, and I never could actually, really, that’s not how I think. But with the philosophy, it was brilliant because it was just mind expanding, and I loved it. I love taking on other people’s ideas and other people’s thoughts, whether I agreed with them or not. And from doing the philosophy, I then started to understand lots of art movements that I’d never understood before, lots of artists, lots of different ways of working, it suddenly becomes very easy, easy for me to look at any kind of art and understand it. Because with the philosophy, I had to take on ideas that I never understood or didn’t like.

And then with the philosophy we were taught not to judge—not to judge the foundation of the idea, but to accept it, and then work with it and then decide. So it was really easy for me to start looking at like say Robert Gober or any minimalist, any neo-Conceptualist, Conceptual art, from the seventies, anything I could, I could take it on, whereas before that, I didn’t understand it. I couldn’t take it on. My brain wouldn’t allow me.

Rail: Is this when you started your writing practice?

Emin: No, I’ve always written, all my life. Even though I can’t spell, and I’ve got no sense of grammar. But I love writing. And I think it’s because of that that I can write really freely. I’m not bogged down by all the rules.

Rail: I like your writing a lot. It’s pared down but still wide open. The language is accessible even when the ideas start becoming more complex. It makes me wonder about your titles. In the recent show there are some short, declarative, even poetic titles: It hurt like death, I went home, and The beginning and The end of everything (all 2023). How do the titles and the paintings come together?

Emin: Sometimes they come when I’m making a painting, or sometimes it’s what I’m thinking. Or sometimes they come only at the end when I have to title the painting. So I look at the painting and think, “What is this? What does it mean to me? What’s it about?” And then I title it. What’s quite nice about this show, Lovers Grave, is all the titles read like a poem when you put them together. It is quite incredible. It’s me working something out for myself, thinking about my life and how it’s working, or how it isn’t working, or trying to resolve something. But I always say about the paintings—they have to tell me something I didn’t know.

Rail: Why do you write the titles in pencil? And why on the face of the canvas?

Emin: It is really weird. I know. [Laughter] Some people don’t like it, they say you shouldn’t do it. You don’t need to sign your paintings, they’re obviously yours, you don’t need to do it. I suppose it’s because I was a printmaker for so long, and I still make lots of prints, and you sign them in pencil when you date it and everything. For me, the title’s really important because it puts the painting into some kind of context. So for example I did this sort of really mad painting, it was probably a year and a half ago. There were these red legs that were really wide apart, and this really gouged out sort of giant vagina and this sort of weird lopsided strange sort of mountain background. It’s a really crude, rough matte, giant painting, and then I threw loads of light white paint over it, and it kind of looked like spunk all between her legs. So on one level, I could have given it a title like, I don’t know, something about cumming or spunk or something sexual or whatever. But I didn’t. I titled it You hurt me – You hurt me – You hurt me (2023). Something like that. Then, when you looked at the painting, you saw it completely differently.

Rail: That makes me think about the painting in the current show I went home (2023). I learned during your conversation with Susan May that the background depicts or references an area of Margate, where you’re from. I’ve never been, so I couldn’t see that.

Emin: When I did that background, I wasn’t painting Margate. I wasn’t painting anything. I was just painting, and I was like you know, this is a bit like a Richard Diebenkorn. That’s what I was thinking, the gray and the red and odd colors, so I think now that’s my Richard Diebenkorn. So I did my Richard Diebenkorn painting, and left it for six months. And then thought, right, I’ve got to make this into a bed or room or something. But before I did that, I actually painted the figures on it. And then I turned it back and I thought, “Oh, I hate the figures. I’m gonna get rid of them.” But I really love this shape and I thought, fucking hell, it’s the Isle of Thanet, it’s Margate, it’s where I live. I can see it. It’s like this aerial view, looking down on Margate. And so for me, it was amazing because I’ve gone back to Margate where I grew up, and it’s made me very happy.

Rail: That’s so fascinating. And I really understand when you tell that story, how the painting needs to be a journey, and it needs to communicate something to you to feel successful. Before I noticed the Diebenkorn connection I thought of the David painting, The Death of Marat (1793), because of the way the figure’s arm hangs down—just one hanging arm—and I went right there. It seemed appropriate to me because it aligned with the death-theme of Lovers Grave. I don’t know if you intended that or not?

Emin: Thanks for pointing it out! [Laughter] I thought that arm looks really familiar. But of course, I love Edvard Munch. I just did a show with Munch’s work a couple of years ago, where I put his The Death of Marat (1907) in the show. So I was looking at that painting continuously—Munch’s version—and looking at that arm continuously. So yes. And then also there’s another Munch painting where there’s a woman and she’s drunk, and she’s laying on a daybed, on a couch. And her arm is down, but it’s the other way round. And that painting I’ve always loved, it’s in Oslo in the National Gallery. So yes, you’re right, but it’s not intentional. Jonathan Jones is an art critic in London, writes for The Guardian. And he used to hate my work. And then over the last ten years, he started to really like it. And he wrote a catalogue essay for me where he pinpoints all of the art historic references in my work, again and again and again. To me, it’s just what I’ve probably stored in my brain, you know? Filed under “I like.” [Laughs]

Rail: It’s remarkable when art does that. It’s one of the reasons why I think those of us who love art are able to come back to it over and over and constantly find new things. When you mentioned Munch that made me think of the little bronze figure in the upstairs room. Is that a smaller version of the sculpture you did in Oslo, I lay here for you (2018)?

Emin: No, it’s a completely different figure.

Rail: It seems like an outlier amongst all of your incredible paintings.

Emin: Normally in a show, I would have maybe a large sculpture, a large bronze or something. And this show I intentionally didn’t. I just wanted the paintings, and also the new gallery. I wanted people to understand the space as well. Maybe my next show, maybe in four or five years time, will be large bronzes. So I wanted to put a bronze in, which gives you an idea that I’m capable of things. And also that little bronze is so sweet. You can hold it in your hand. And it’s something you can run away with. It’s not a giant, colossal work of art, it’s something small and it’s intimate, and it can be held. And I’d very much like that to happen to me, as well. I’d like to be held. I’d like to be put in someone’s pocket.

Rail: You mentioned at the press conference how empowering it was to fall in love again, especially after you had just faced death. I wanted to ask about memory and the body. There are memories we keep in our mind, of course, but our body also holds memory. I wonder if you agree? And if you do, what do you think about how memory in the body shifts and changes, especially when love re-enters?

Emin: Yes, definitely. You can have memories of pain, and you can have memories of pleasure. I think that’s really true. I think part of my bladder cancer was because my bladder was just so fucked up. I’d gone to this psychic two years ago, and they said to me, “Oh, this part of your body is in trauma, you know, your bladder, it’s in so much trauma from your childhood and everything.” And they were absolutely right. And then once my bladder got removed—it’s rotten, old, disgusting. I used to smoke fifty cigarettes a day, right? And my bladder was just full of cancer. It was full of liquid carbon monoxide that had dried out my bladder, and just made it an old wreck. Part of all that was my anxiety, and my fears, and my lack of confidence—all of that stuff. And it was amazing, when the bladder got taken out, it was like something really dark got taken out of me as well.

Rail: I couldn’t help but think of how poignant it was when you told that story in front of your painting, The beginning and The end of everything. The idea of that painting, the idea of that title really seems to capture that passage in life where a thing ends another thing begins. I think a lot of people envision death that way. Did you?

Emin: I thought I was gonna die, which was more probable than me living, definitely. My friend Cecily, she came to every meeting—everything with my specialist, my surgeon, every consultation, and there were lots and they were very fast. And each consultation got worse than the last. The news got worse and worse and worse. And then when I actually thought I was probably going to die, and I didn’t, she asked me how I felt, and I said, it’s kind of strange because I was ready. I was ready for it. I’d accepted it already. And it was like, getting married or something, standing at the altar and death didn’t come, you know, and so I went, “Oh, well. Now what am I going to do?”

I’d love to just get on with life, and I think now even when I’m sad, I’m not as sad as I used to be, which is very strange. I used to really get depressed, and I was very nihilistic, and I drank all the time. But always part of me had some faith that things could get better. And this, it may seem surreal, but it’s really proved to me that I was right to have that faith. I was right to believe that things can change. I changed my life radically between the cancer and getting the all clear. I changed my life in an unrecognizable way, and it’s brave to change things. But I think after you’ve had an experience like I did, if you can change things, you will. Because you know you have to.

Rail: Because you know you have to. And so I have a quote, written down from an interview you gave to Kari Brandtzæg, the curator at the Munch Museum. And she says that, “At age fifty-seven, Tracy felt she embarked on the third and final phase of life, which she regarded as a state of more conscious maturity.” And I wanted to ask you about that: what is a state of more conscious maturity? Is that what you’re describing—

Emin: It sounds really pompous. [Laughter] But yeah, I definitely have always thought there were three stages of life, beginning, middle, and the end. But I hope for me, there’s just two—before cancer and after cancer. And also, I’ve never had children. So I didn’t have that in between where you watch and care about other people growing. I’ve never had that. So in a way, I’ve always stayed sort of child-like myself. And so now I suddenly grew up really quickly, and sort of see life in a very different way, a much more mature way. And, I mean, lots of me is still the same, but I’m more conscientious. I’m more caring than I used to be, I think.

Rail: Seems like the right time to start that school you were talking about.

Emin: That’s what I mean, that’s a good example. I want to live and enjoy my life and enjoy art, and enjoy being with artists. And enjoy getting energy from young artists and all kinds of things that before I was too selfish to. I was too young as well, probably. And now it’s all fallen into place. It’s brilliant. Margate is fantastic. The whole world’s heard of Margate now. It’s so good. You know, Margate is a seaside town that was all boarded up fifteen years ago, and now because of art, it completely comes to light.

Rail: What a beautiful transition. It makes me think of Marfa, except Judd didn’t come from Texas.

Emin: Yeah. Very different, Margate from Marfa. But what is important is the sense of community through art. And that is very much the same in both places. My trip to Marfa that I had with the Judd Foundation, they were so lovely to me, and I had such an amazing few days there. I could feel the archive, I could look in the cupboards. I loved it because Donald Judd, you know, was just a massive hoarder. Massive hoarder. And he just put it all into order throughout his life. And the reason he went to Marfa was so he could put all his stuff everywhere, you know, and then when he died, everything was in its right place, which is important because his work can be so misunderstood and be in the wrong context or shown incorrectly. And he said, “this is how it is to be seen.” So everyone who has a Judd can show it however they want. If we want to see how Donald Judd wanted it, we can go to Marfa. But not just that, when I was there, there was a concert, and they were putting a play on and everybody was involved and had energy about being creative. They weren’t waiting for someone to do it for them. They were doing it themselves. Margate is very much like that.

Rail: That’s such a vital energy. I’m curious, did you know that Donald Judd loved daybeds so much before you went to visit his place in Marfa?

Emin: No, but I knew that he liked really cool furniture. I knew about the ones that he made, you know, the wooden ones, but I didn’t know about his absolute love of collecting things, collecting chairs, collecting rugs, collecting Native American blankets, collecting—his whole collections of things were pretty fascinating. And his library’s beyond beautiful, you know? So that’s another thing. Someone would go, “I wouldn’t think that you would like Donald Judd, Tracey.” And I said, “look at the art that Donald Judd liked.” His personal taste is lots of figurative painting.

Rail: Well, sure, and his best friend, John Chamberlain—I feel like a John Chamberlain and Tracey Emin show would be very nice in Marfa.

Emin: Really sexy, wouldn’t it?

Rail: It really would be.

Emin: John Chamberlain is hardly minimal, is he? [Laughter] It’s insane. It’s crazy, his work. But in the context of where it is, and given this spirit of the space. It’s like a happening, like an apparition, like an explosion. It’s so full of energy.

Rail: I want to take us back to the Faurschou Foundation, where you’ve got the installation Exorcism of the Last Painting I Ever Made. Because I think in one sense, the way that room is situated for that artwork, is not so different from what Judd did with the buildings as capsules for certain pieces. But that wasn’t the comparison I wanted to make. I really wanted to think about how that piece also has that kind of threshold energy that corresponds to the end of something and the beginning of something—that I felt was connected to the new paintings you were making.

Emin: Yeah, isn’t it brilliant! It’s being shown at the same time as my show. I couldn’t be luckier on that.

Rail: I so agree. And the way they connect to each other is also very—

Emin: Well, the beginning and the end of that is because I hated my body. I stopped painting since I was pregnant. So I’ve got pregnant. I was scared of the dark, I was scared of being alone. And my grandmother had just died, and I was really grieving for her. I couldn’t get over my grief. So I decided to go into that room, and paint my way out of it, paint my way out of the guilt from having the abortion, paint my way out of missing my grandmother, paint my way out of my fear of painting again, and releasing myself, and all of these things, and I did it.

But that room was supposed to be burnt. Everything from that room was supposed to be burnt—the paintings, everything in the snow. I wanted to make a giant pyre and burn everything, like a phoenix, but the gallerist wouldn’t let me. In the long run, it’s good that it’s still here. I love the self portrait of me above the bed. You know, I visited recently and I was thinking, bloody hell, I had three and a half weeks to do that, because it was in between my period. I was in my early thirties and when I did that, nobody paid a blind bit of attention to it. Nobody. Because everyone thought it was cynical or like a game or something. But it wasn’t, I was really sincere.

Rail: I couldn’t help but think of that room as having the quality of a tomb or a crypt after seeing Lovers Grave.

Emin: Someone said to me you’ve done more in the last three years than you have done in the whole of your life. How come? And I said, because it’s like the great Egyptians. Now I’m building my pyramids, I’m building my tombs, I’m building my mausoleums, I’m building my journey to death. I’m building my way forward, because I understand where it is. So it’s almost like I’ve lived and I’ve somehow been reborn. I’ve got a while longer and while I’m here, I have to get ready. I have to get everything ready for the next big great adventure.

Rail: I noticed in the basement of the White Cube exhibition the coffin paintings. The one that comes right to mind is It hurt like death. Can you tell me about how that painting evolved?

Emin: When I’m doing the little paintings, I don’t really think about them very much, I’m just painting. Sometimes they take me longer to do than the big paintings. And they just come out how they do. It’s like, it’s like a little sort of minuet from my mind, and they just come out. And then I look at them and I think, wow, that looks a little bit like a coffin, or that looks like a grave. There’s the one with the mourners, you know, I drew that black shape. And I thought, wow, that really looks like a grave. And so then I drew the mourners on top.

Yesterday, I had students from Yale and the New York Academy, and I did a walkthrough for them all. And I was explaining to them how I painted and how I made my work. Nothing I do is contrived. I don’t sit down and think, right, I’m going to draw a grave and do three people mourning at the side of the grave. It just happens, it just comes out like that. So I don’t think I’m going to paint a picture of this. It’s not a picture. It’s a painting. And I’m using the paints to express myself.

Rail: When did you find the title Lovers Grave in this body of work?

Emin: About four years ago I did a painting in the middle of the night when I was still drinking, before the cancer. And I did this sort of crazy drawing, it was like two lovers in a grave. And I thought it really looked like when they find tombs and they find lovers curled up in each other’s arms. And I really loved it. But I couldn’t accept it.

So I painted over it. And then I did this really, full-on, giant, massive, amazing painting. And then for some strange reason, I painted over that too. And at the same time, I was falling in love with this person. And we were writing to each other and everything. And then I said, and then I just wrote across this painting, you know, “I Wanted You To Fuck Me So Much I Couldn't Paint Anymore.” And then, I was annoyed that I painted over the original “Lovers Grave” and I wanted to paint another one but I just couldn’t, I just couldn’t do it.

So after the cancer when I could start painting again, I painted this big red shape that was like a sort of lover’s coffin, grave, double grave. And I love this space so much I didn’t want to touch it. So then I didn’t have a grave. And then I just started painting, and they just started to come up, the beds, and the graves, and everything. So it worked for me, and then the title “Lovers Grave” was good because when you’re really in love, you know, you want to die with someone, you want to be with them for eternity. And if it doesn’t work, then you have to bury the love. You have to put it in the grave and cover it up and carry on. So it has all these—there’s all these different things about it. The title is very open ended.

Rail: Yeah, I love that idea. And thinking about you as a printmaker, I also thought of the word engrave, and in that sense the word “grave” is not a burial plot but a carving-in, like a—

Emin: Yes, yes. When you really love, you carve into each other’s souls. And part of that love stays there, like you said about the body having memory. So when you really love someone, when you think about them deeply, you can feel them inside you. They’re still there. I haven’t been in love that often in my life, but the people I have really been in love with, I stayed close to them. Like Carl Freedman, for example. He’s my neighbor in Margate. We bought the building together, we’ve known each other since we were in our twenties. So I don’t lose love, because love changes, love molds into another form, like a candle. When it burns, the wax is still there. The flame might not be, but the stuff remains.