Florence is a city that worships the body - smooth, perfect, immortalised in marble. But Tracey Emin has never been interested in perfection. In Sex and Solitude, her first major solo exhibition in Italy, she brings a different kind of body to Palazzo Strozzi - one that aches, bleeds, collapses, and survives.
Wander into the courtyard of the Renaissance palace, built in 1489, and you'll find her colossal bronze sculpture I Followed You to the End (2024). The lower half of a fragmented female figure, two crumpled legs, dominates the space - a stark contrast to Florence’s many triumphant bronzes, such as Benvenuto Cellini’s Perseus with the Head of Medusa, standing victorious in the Loggia dei Lanzi. Emin’s sculpture, which was previously shown at London's White Cube Bermondsey last year, denies heroism. Instead, it is raw, broken, and heavy with vulnerability.
