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Brian Sewell's rating
Emin's skill has been usurped by celebrity
By
Brian Sewell
19 May 2011
A scrupulous art critic must admit that it was with a groan that he greeted the first news of Tracey Emin's exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, with a groan that he read the premature ejaculatory articles and with a groan that he wandered through this retrospective celebration of unmediated autobiographical relics and self-centred sentimentality.
In the years since Charles Saatchi brought her to the fore in his Sensation show at the Royal Academy in 1997, I have said very little of Miss Emin; at that he exhibited her Tent, to the interior of which she had patchworked the names of "everyone I have ever slept with", a thing of puerile simplicity, and, two years later, he acquired the tumbled bed that was her notorious installation for the Turner Prize, a squalid relic of concupiscence and misery reconstructed in self-pity. Neither had much to do with art, both justified my contempt for the parading of herself that were the works of her earlier hang-out years, and I thought that even our insane contemporary art world would have enough common sense to let her fade into obscurity. She did not. She became instead, largely through the amused but sceptical interest of the popular press, a very public figure, cunningly exploiting ignorance, irascible emotion and raw sex to draw attention to herself.
In unholy symbiosis, the more Miss Emin played the drunken slut, the more attention the press paid and the more she became the creature of the art establishment, nationally and internationally, promoted by the Serota Tendency (ever Mammon's mate) and the Arts and British Councils, with her art dealer Jay Jopling ensconced in his White Cube quietly making fortunes for himself and her. It was and is still an unspoken but consensual conspiracy.
Now held in awe by deluded men as sage, sibyl and Margate's thaumaturge, most women, I am told, see her as some sort of heroic victim, raped as a child, ravaged as a teenager, sweetly sentimental towards her miserable self, yet still full of longing for the status of adored princess, part fairytale, part working-class mythology. Two such women are to give talks during the course of the exhibition and have contributed essays to the catalogue. Halfway through hers, Jennifer Doyle, a Californian professor of literature and gender studies, is so moved by her exploration of abortion (twice Miss Emin's experience - "1992 Became pregnant again - had another abortion - didn't give a damn. Just did it - dealt with it without heart"), the sweetness of children, the tenderness of mothering, the body in trauma and the emotions in revolt that Miss Emin fades from her narrative and is replaced by Miss Doyle herself. Perhaps, however, this is exactly what Miss Emin sets out to achieve with her grinding concern for her body and emotions, the requirement that all women should respond to her abject predicaments with such powerful but essentially feminine empathy that they, by transference, assume Miss Emin's miserable self-concern.
This is all very well but it eliminates half her potential audience. As a man, I do not feel excluded from the distress of Madame Bovary and Madame Butterfly, but, as a witness of Miss Emin's self-examination, I remain an uninvolved outsider and feel not the slightest sympathy. In truth, I feel nothing for her relaxations of the sphincter of her bladder, nothing for her masturbation, nothing for her sexual conjugations, nothing for her abortions and nothing for her current menopausal state. I am utterly unmoved by all the means that she ineptly employs to mirror or narrate her various experiences, her silly patchwork blankets, her feeble scratchy monoprints and drawings, her Kodak Brownie photographs, her neon signs, videos and records of futile live performances, and her variations on the shed I see only as clear evidence of an arrested infantile craving for the aedicula - she should indeed have seen a psychiatrist in 1981, as was advised when she dropped out of the Medway College of Design.
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.
Being Miss Emin is her core activity. "Look at me,
look at me!" she barks to get an audience and, then, like some fraudulent medieval marketeer of relics, gulls us into venerating the trivial keepsakes of herself that she now exhibits in glass cases.
The other woman contributor to the catalogue, the writer Ali Smith, promotes Miss Emin as a major literary figure, "really good with words", her misspellings, as with "Picaso", offering "a whole new possibility of the notion of Picasso … the missing letter makes you look twice …" If her essay demonstrates anything (apart from the folly of encouraging writers who know nothing of art to write ekphrastic bilge), it is that Miss Emin likes to be frank with words that are, for the moment, largely not to be said or printed in polite society. To some extent I agree - I have in the past written in favour of fuck as a verb and noun, its loveless, selfish, gleeful and trophy note so much more truthful than the common euphemisms; and I am inclined to argue for cunt in the context of Lucian Freud, again because it is more fitting for his blunt and loveless imagery, with nothing of the coyness of Augustus John's Romany references to cunnie; but Miss Emin seems to employ the word for the small shock value that it may still have.
Are any of us now really shocked by "my cunt is wet with fear", a neon sign that can only have meaning over the door of a brothel, or by "a rose is a cunt is a rose" (a play on cunt by any other name), a carefully posed photograph of Miss Emin enthralling us with legs wide apart stuffing banknotes into her vagina? For this there is a classical precedent in that Danaë, consequently mother of Perseus, was seduced by Zeus metamorphosed into a shower of gold - a not uncommon subject in Renaissance painting, an allegory of prostitution and an opportunity for mild pornography tinged with wry male humour - but, as Miss Emin shows no evidence of education, it is to be doubted that she knows of it and the kinship of imagery is mere coincidence. Blake, Van Gogh, Munch and Klimt have been claimed as her antecedents but I doubt if she knows in any depth anything of the arts and cultures of the past that, until a century ago, used to inform the arts and cultures of the present. But to return to cunt, surely DH Lawrence, if his use of it in Lady Chatterley's Lover failed to elevate it into the polite conversation of our grandparents in 1928, must posthumously have inspired its resurrection after the famous obscenity trial of 1960, when the literary lions of England closed ranks against the censor; when, in 1977, two decades before Miss Emin's scattering it hither and yon, Gilbert and George trounced the taboo with their Dirty Words Pictures, hardly an eyebrow moved.
The last words of Miss Emin's interview with Ralph Rugoff, director of the Hayward Gallery, are: "What's it all about? What am I doing? And I'm still asking those questions now." And so are we.
How has it been possible for Miss Emin, once notoriously drunk and abusive, formerly "Mad Tracey from Margit", now moaning with self-pity , to have become, as the Hayward's panjandrum put it, one of this country's "most renowned and celebrated artists"? How have our definitions of art and, even more preposterously, sculpture, been so elastic as to include crudely patchworked blankets, crude images of body functions, crude neon admonitions and crude lifesize dilapidations of the beach hut? Far from being "really good with words", she is illiterate, witless, turns the alphabet topsy-turvy and employs the language of graffiti boys. Miss Emin's words and images, laden with catharsis, are less art than bullying demands for empathy.
Skill, if she ever had any, has been usurped by celebrity; celebrity has been nourished by deliberate outrage and offence; and now, in the constant public parading of private distress, she has developed a hectoring arrogance that conflicts with what is left of the instinctive self-abjection that has always been her home-made muse.
The title of her retrospective, so tediously repetitious that neither shock nor distaste survives it, is Love Is What You Want, its emblem a neon sign with these words contained within a heart, bathetic, silly, sentimental, the stuff of the teenage girl besotted with boy bands rather than the serious business we might reasonably expect of a mature and famous woman of 47. Weighed down with self-expression, producing it has, no doubt, been therapeutic for Miss Emin and we, simple wanderers through the circles of her hell, now know the answer to her question, "What's it all about?" You, dear Miss Emin, you - but you have never been enough.
Tracey Emin: Love Is What You Want is at the Hayward Gallery, SE1 (020 7960 4200, southbankcentre.co.uk) until August 29. Open Sat-Weds 10am-6pm, Thurs-Fri 10am-8pm. Admission £12 (concs available); under 16s must be accompanied by an adult.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
Reader views (39)
I am absolutely appalled by this article which displays blatant sexist, chauvinistic opinions, clearly being a platform to show how 'educated' Mr Sewell is himself. Personally I think this entire article was wholly self indulgent, instead of concentrating on reviewing art, he simply indulges in showing how comparably knowledgeable he is.
Not once in the article did Mr Sewell mention a prominent female artist but instead chose to illustrate his words with an abundance of male figures, interesting the way in which he could not draw himself to compare against another woman.
As for 'her silly patchwork blankets' I suggest Mr Sewell should further his education by reading such works as The Subversive Stitch, or the exhibition catalog for the V and A's Quilts exhibition ... considering both are edited by women I guess he will opt out though.
- Rebecca, London, 14/11/2011 01:42
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Oh dear, what sad, insular, elitist, insignificant little lives you all must lead? Art is not for intellectual musings full of snobbery and self loathing, Tracy may not be to your liking but your shallow, congratulatory "Here Here Brian" we are all in agreement, shows not your understanding of Art, but the lack of it, life is how it is, not as we would like it to be, Tracy shows us a rawness that we think we understand and already know so well the only defence is attack? therefore reiterating our misguided belief that it cannot possibly be art can it? .............
- Mark R., London UK, 15/10/2011 11:21
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I thought it was poor. I do have lots of money though and am holding a dinner party next weekend.
'Alan, London' you are invited, What piece of genius celebrity 6th form student artwork do you suggest I purchase to impress you all?
- Younghead, London, 19/07/2011 23:34
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An excellent review - the more often critics can denunciate this rubbish the better.
I did think that the earlier comments by Ashlyn were insightful however, so I'll take the liberty of reproducing them here.
Couldn't have put it better myself Brian. However, as much I dislike her crude and uninteresting art and what it represents she does portray how a large proportion of society is or behaves today. Her crude cheapness and tackiness, use of fowl language and shock tactics, the accumulation of money by any means possible even at the cost of ones own self respect. In fact her representation of women as a whole, not only herself, is what our world or younger generation has turned into. I don't like any of it but she does have a point.
- ashlyn, London, 19/05/2011 14:57
- Spencer Marlow, Fleet, Hampshire, 12/06/2011 18:31
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My artwork consists of those 'old fashioned' ideas of painting pictures and drawing. As an untrained artist, only recently plucking up courage to show others my work,I feel that I show more heart in my work than Emin does.
Mr Sewell is correct in his views on Emin. I imagine that if I did what Emin does I would be locked up.
The art establishment has a lot to answer for in promoting this form of artistic expression and making it more acceptable and worthy than the so called traditional forms that put paint on canvas and pencil on paper. Don't even get me started on Hirst!
- artcoxi, manchester, 10/06/2011 12:24
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Thank you Mr Sewell for clarifying the matter concerning Emin's credibility as an artist. Of course she's no good! I only hope that the post-emin world will come out the other end with the memory that there is something good in art that remains untouched by Emin's rubbish, her uncouth and careless promoters, and her increasingly ignorant fan base who always cries for more. It is difficult to find a word to describe the mistake of her work. I think it will become know as Eminism i.e. worthless, self-indulgent, unscrupulous, fame-seeking opportunism in a field of knowledge one knows nothing about, or cares for in the least.
- Shelley Frank, Hackney, 23/05/2011 19:48
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Oh my Tracey is as good an artist as Billy is similarly Childish. Thank you Brian Sewell.
- IAN CAMERON, LONDON, 22/05/2011 15:50
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I think there's a reason "Sewell" is so close to "Sewer".
- Hannah, Edinburgh, 22/05/2011 13:29
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'unto' Mr Murphy? We need so few words to say something of what we are, don't we?
Mr Sewell allows himself so very many.
- Emma Mc, London UK, 22/05/2011 09:11
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What I particularly dislike about all the hype around Emin is that I find myself lumped into the (largely pro) female camp as if the arguments could be so simplistically split along gender lines. Not one jot do I identify with Emin, her persona appals me, especially her attitude to abortion. Brian Sewell writes the definitive article for all Brit Trash art, male or female, their stuff demeans us all, wastes our time, and, gallingly, generates a large amount of cash for the small minority promoting these pretenders .
- Jo, Hants, 21/05/2011 12:28
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This is quite simply superb! Eloquence adorning insight, even unto the point where it becomes itself a kind of artform. Ignore the usual moronic PC posters here, Mr Sewell, as I know you will and do: wearing, as your intellect does, armour impenetrable by their pigmy arrows...
- James Murphy, EAst Meon, England, 21/05/2011 12:06
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Brian Sewell has powerfully proved in this article why Tracy Emin is an interesting artist. He starts with the very measured 'a scrupulous art critic must admit..' and then allows himself the fully indulged pleasure of the most rank diatribe fully displaying all the peacock plumage of education, class, sex and privilege. He is masterful, he is damning, he is full of visceral repulsion at Tracy Emin's use of 'raw sex', her stupidity, her arrogance, her sentimentalism and self absorption.. This is a very passionate review full of sexual revulsion and horror at all this uneducated bolshy woman stands for.
Tracy Emin, in one way or another has managed to draw a great deal of male disgust and hatred of women to the surface in fascinating ways. From the sexual aggression of the males of her youth to the educated, comfortable middle classed males who feel self satisfied and socially 'permitted' to belittle her and channel their faint disgust under the disguise of 'art criticism' at dinner parties to the full scale rant of a 'respected' art critic who writes for a well read London paper. She has had the courage and the wile to draw this to the surface and make it show it's face (all it's faces). Women applaud this in her, it is not a sentimental female sharing a weepy self indulgence about 'feelings' but a respect for someone who is able to manipulate and bring misogyny into the open. I applaud her.
- Emma Mc, London UK, 21/05/2011 08:55
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Forenote: It's perplexing to see the review called sexist. Whilst sympathizing the opinion it's apparent it knocked her as a female artist--not every female artist and most certainly not every female. Let's lay that one to rest. On to the meat and potatoes; Emin. I agree in that she's representative of a portion. There's an unspoken viewpoint there and bravo to her for finding and exploiting it. In a sense she seems to be the artistic mirror of our 'celebrity culture'. Her work is glossy magazine tragic back story 'celebrity train wreck'cocktail in art form, self-assuredness and attention hungriness clashing with any redeeming sense of empathy within it. Her work matches the current mentality being marketed to society (through both media and education) if only it appeared self aware of that! Objectively I can appreciate nuggets of conceivable meaning in her work, personally I cannot stomach it. There is no way forwards in wallowing. Perhaps comfort and affirmation, but her work felt neither to experience. Thanks for the article Sewell and thank you for reading!
- Katherine, Hastings, England, 20/05/2011 22:20
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This article Is harsh, sexist and frankly rude. Having been to the show at the Hayward Gallery, i can honestly say that Tracey Emin is one of Britains best assets and talents. The show does contain beautiful and intimate drawings and paintings. Perhaps if you give the work some thought and engagement on a mature level, then perhaps you could realt appreciate it. Tracey is fantastic please be less harsh towards her work and personality.
- Ed, London, 20/05/2011 19:27
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Tracey Emin and Brian Sewell two peas from the same pod,
The kind of pod that requires the constant nurturing of the media and those self obsessed enough to be terrified of being denounced as primitive if they "don't get it"!
Quite why the ES thought its readership would be interested in the output of either of these frauds is one of life's great mysteries.
- Fed up, East Londonistan, 20/05/2011 14:44
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Self referential narcissism cannot in any way entertain or enlighten. (Unless we are kidding ourselves) Valid art re-focusses our common humanity through a shared experience. It awakens common feelings and at it's best is not a mere palliative or diversion. The ironic nihilism of say M Duchamp is only entertaining the first time round. If repeated it subsequently becomes parodic and vacuous. Conceptualism was once edgy and anti establishment. Now it just repeats itself in endless tedious guises. Ironically now someone like Emin can be "edgy" and establishment at the same time. She is a sort of thinking man's Jade Goody
- Devereaux, London UK, 20/05/2011 14:36
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Read this on the tube last night and am currently sending you the cleaning bill for my jacket after laughing so much i spilt my severly over priced upper crust english breakfast tea all over myself. Must say your bosses knew what they were doing when they sent you to review the show - it made a great read. Totally agree with you, how Emin has become such a national treasure is beyond me. I think the vast majority of her so called fans have never actually been to see any of her work, and are merely caught up in the celebrity, a la pete doherty - though it must be said the libertines were much more talented in their chosen field then miss Emin. I've never quite forgiven Dylan Jones for giving her the resident poet status in GQ magazine, and much the same the BA marketing staff who dreamt up the current 'create a piece of art with help from Tracey Emin...' in their 'great britons' promo - i sudder to think of the derranged piece these poor competition 'winners' will be forced to work on. I'll be going over to do my own (hopefully just as entertaining) review, but will more than likely be super clean shaving, wearing my old shorts based school uniform and attaching myself to some un suspecting older couple in an attempt to avoid the extortionate £12 fee. I'm kinda hoping Billy Childish and his Stuckist counterparts will turn up in clown costumes, mount the rickety looking beach hut before it collapses on them and Miss Emin. Now that would be a show worth seeing....
- NewNotNewArt, SW London, 20/05/2011 14:01
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Spot on Brian, good work fella!
- benboy2k10, Brighton, 20/05/2011 13:22
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Sending Brian Sewell to review a Tracey Emin show is like sending Wayne Rooney to review the Ring Cycle - we all know he is going to turn round and call it a load of cr@p. So why employ someone who has no understanding or appreciation of contemporary art to review such an exhbition? The only revelation in this article for me is just what a bore Mr Sewell is - he strikes me as the kind of insecure man who spends his life trying to demonstrate how 'clever' he is with a constant avalanche of verbose, over-wordy waffle.
- Alan, London, 20/05/2011 12:40
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This is the most sexist and classist thing I've read in recent memory. I am no fan of Emin's but check out the way Sewell uses the word "woman", the way he describes her female audience, the way he assumes she has no education and is completely unaware of the cannonical references he is so fond of. In this day and age the fact that writing like this passes by an editor untouched is profoundly depressing and shows just how far we have not come.
- Hysterical Woman, London, UK, 20/05/2011 11:44
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Spot on Mr Sewell!
- Steve Russell, London, UK, 20/05/2011 10:57
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An excellent and entertaining review, that I thoroughly enjoyed reading. My only quibble - I have never, and neither has any woman I am aware of, viewed Ms Emin as a hero.
- Annette, London, 20/05/2011 10:22
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Tracy Emin has never done if for me, either. Nor has Pete Doherty, Kate Moss, Jordan, or any other of the current UK (sensationalist) media stars. Suggesting that Ms. Emin does represent a segment of the UK's female population is likely quite true, but that still doesn't qualify her as an artist or her works as art. Besides who she might represent is highly unlikely to be inclined toward art or even step inside a gallery. And true, this critique was overblown, but hey, that's the way of the writer; it's not art either. But like Emin's work it communicates something to someone. Now please, let's move on.
- Wayne, Fredericton, Canada, 20/05/2011 05:12
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Oh, I also love your supposition that because of what you assume to be her level of education she must be utterly unaware of any references her art is making. So I suppose having gone to art school and a place at the Royal Academy don't count as an education?
What posh puffery. Shame on you.
- Hysterical Woman, London, UK, 20/05/2011 00:10
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This is an unbelievably sexist critique filled with hate rather than any kind of engagement with the work. Sure, you don't like her. I have no idea why. Other than the fact that as a man you feel excluded, and women in all their frenzied emotions dare to Empathize. (Oh those silly women and their confounded ideas of empathy.)
I found this article so distasteful that I swore loudly several times on the tube. Brian Sewell has no trouble empathising with Madame Bovary or Madame Butterfly, fictional women written by white men like himself. But a real woman! Who other women enjoy as an artist! Horrible!
I know nothing of Emin's work but this article has made sure that I will be steering clear of Sewell from now on. Learn how to write a proper art critique. Please.
- Hysterical Woman, London, UK, 20/05/2011 00:07
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What's interesting is how we got to this stage, where an artist such as Emin is considered by the art establishment as culturally significant. If they didn't, she wouldn't be.
- Sausage, London, 19/05/2011 22:21
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How come Brian Sewell gets away with using the full "f" and "c" words whilst we punters have to sod around with the asterisk?
- Joe Blow, Wales, 19/05/2011 19:45
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Thank you Mr. Sewell. Please keep speaking out against this relentless tide of over-hyped mediocracy.
Where are the real artists of that generation? Does anyone paint, draw, or sculpt any more?
- SarahN, London, UK, 19/05/2011 18:08
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What has the Hayward come to that public money is spent displaying this stuff.
- jack spratt, Richmond, Surrey, 19/05/2011 18:01
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Thank you, Brian Sewell.
At last a critic who doesn't fawn over this talentless self-promoter. It always infuriates me how she claims to be heir to Duchamp et al, she is nothing of the sort.
- James, London, 19/05/2011 17:51
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Our cat looks better than the picture ,for if you take a hard and closer look what do you see. Something not very nice .How about this . A fallen woman who on very hard times has had to sell herself. She's done well the punters have thrown paper money and coins which she has around her . I'm sorry but if this is so called art --- There's a green bin on the corner . Please keep Britain Tidy.
- Hamilton Straker, Ealing ,West London, 19/05/2011 16:40
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Brian, it's o.k. All this stress about Tracey and her art. It's art if she wants it to be art and it's not bad art because someone doesn't like it. Personally, every time I see or hear anything to do with Tracey Emin my heart goes boom boom boom. I like that. I also really like the way Brian Sewell thinks and rights. And he has a lovely voice.x.
- somedumbhippy, englandtown, 19/05/2011 16:05
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What a long-winded way of saying she's crap.
- Dave Markham, London, UK, 19/05/2011 15:32
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Couldn't have put it better myself Brian. However, as much I dislike her crude and uninteresting art and what it represents she does portray how a large proportion of society is or behaves today. Her crude cheapness and tackiness, use of fowl language and shock tactics, the accumulation of money by any means possible even at the cost of ones own self respect. In fact her representation of women as a whole, not only herself, is what our world or younger generation has turned into. I don't like any of it but she does have a point.
- ashlyn, London, 19/05/2011 14:57
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Totally agree with this. Thank heavens there are still some art critics who will say it about this ludicrously undeserving exhibitionist.
- Simon, London, 19/05/2011 14:16
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Totally agree with this. Thank heavens there are still some art critics who will say it about this ludicrously undeserving exhibitionist.
- Simon, London, 19/05/2011 14:14
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The joy of going to an art gallery standing there in silence and awe of some of the great artists dead and alive, and then you get Tracy Emin's vomit enducing self pitying pile of Cr*p, the talentless shock jock of the art world.
- Jimmy, Camden Town, 19/05/2011 14:05
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Emin is the art world's Pete Docherty.Once they have found out shocking pays they just up the stakes. Both completely lost their way.
- Terry, Hennebont France, 19/05/2011 12:53
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Hurrah Brian! The Empress has no clothes, which, she fails to realise, does not make her interesting.
- Red Fred, London, 19/05/2011 12:13
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