As so often, Brian Sewell said it best. In his memorable review of Tracey Emin’s 2011 show at the Hayward, this paper’s great critic observed that “being Miss Emin is her core activity”. If he had been spared to see the current retrospective at Tate Modern, A Second Life, he would have had no cause to revise that judgment — though it’s now “Dame” Tracey.
He declared: “I do not recognise the almost mystical status conferred on her as an artist whose life, art and being are so interrelated as to be inseparable (surely the case too with every artist of any weight), when her life and being so greatly outweigh the very little that might (but only with extreme generosity) perhaps be classified as art.” Indeed, unless you are prepared to invest the same interest in Tracey Emin as the woman herself, pause before you come to this show.
