The most powerful art speaks of and to the emotions. It tackles trauma and cathartically helps us to cope with it. It acknowledges pain, suffering and betrayal. It goes beyond an aestheticised veneer to raw emotion. It seeks to touch not just the eyes, but the soul.
The major retrospective of Tracey Emin’s career at London’s Tate Modern does just that, and features her most significant surviving works. It also reflects her characteristic subjects, techniques, materials and approaches.
The monumental bronze I Followed You to the End (2024), displayed on the approach to the Tate, is a foretaste of the anguished bodies in the statues within. These and the agonised black lines, floods of blood-red and bleak white backgrounds of paintings like Rape (2018) graphically engage with such traumatic experiences.
