Tracey Emin out to prove she’s no conservative at London retrospective

Swearing at John Humphrys and mouthing Tory platitutudes: all part of the publicity for Love is What You Want After two decades scaring the horses with her drunkenness on TV and sexually explicit art Tracey Emin now risks becoming part of the establishment by dining with the Tories and opening on Wednesday a mid-career retrospective at one of Britain’s most important galleries. Well, almost. Telling John Humphrys on BBC Radio 4′s Today programme that she wanted her epitaph to be “fuck me while I’m sleeping” may mean she’s not quite there yet. Emin said afterwards she had been provoked by Humphrys’s assertion that she was mellowing. “It was very funny. I like John Humphrys, he’s a nice person. He gets people up in the mornings.” The 47-year-old artist was speaking at a preview of the most important show of her work to date, at the Hayward Gallery, London, being staged as part of the South Bank Centre’s 60th anniversary of the Festival of Britain. It is not a show that could ever have been staged at the original festival. There is much that could shock: lots of the swearing, masturbation and intensely private confessional which Emin has become loved and disliked for, in perhaps equal measure. The fact that she has the retrospective is a measure of her standing in the art world and, as she pointed out, all of her forthcoming shows are museum exhibitions: at Turner Contemporary in her home town of Margate; then the Brooklyn Museum in New York and MOCA in Miami. Emin used to upset the right with her provocative art and unapologetic mouthiness. Now, with her conversion to the Conservatives, now she is in danger of upsetting the left. Yesterday Emin was unafraid of pouring oil on the fire by declaring that the Tories simply offered the best hope for the arts. “There’s no money, the country is bankrupt so the arts is going to be bottom of the list on everyone’s agenda except that the Tories have an amazing arts minister in Ed Vaizey who is particularly protective and defensive of the arts. “Also the arts cuts, they are less than they were eight years ago with the Labour government. In the present climate its amazing that there’s any money for the arts at all. “And remember, Tory people are massive collectors of the arts. For a lot of my friends, who think I’m crazy voting for the Tories – I want to know who buys their work? Who are the biggest philanthropists? I promise you, it’s not Labour voters.” Emin was speaking ahead of what she said was the biggest moment of her art career so far and the retrospective is expected to be popular with younger audiences, particularly younger women. “They can see that I’ve been on a journey and they are on a journey themselves and they relate to that,” she said. There is though a recommendation that under-16s should be with an adult because of the frank content, with even Emin admitting she feels a little embarrassed and queasy about one of the pieces – some used tampons from about 12 years ago, displayed next to a pregnancy test. “The tampons were a major surprise. I was thinking I should have cast them.” Emin is clearly fiercely proud of the show and believes visitors will easily be able to spend three hours at it, viewing some of her key works as well as seldom-seen pieces. “I hope they come out think I’m a better artist than when they went in. I’m thrilled with the show.” Two seminal works missing are her unmade bed, which Charles Saatchi is going to show at a 2012 show he is planning, and her tent – Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963-1995 – which was destroyed in the Momart fire of 2004. There are though 12 of her blankets with some of her deepest and darkest thoughts appliquéd to them – “I do not expect to be a mother but I do expect to die alone,” for example – and 16 of her neon signs including one she has made for the show – and has been adopted as its title – “Love is What You Want”. Much of the art has been informed by the darker episodes in Emin’s life, including abuse and rape and abortion, but she said she was now in a happy place and really enjoying her art. She stopped her partying for a bit but has resumed as she is now single and, frankly, life is too short. Ralph Rugoff, director of the Hayward, said much of the public was familiar with only a small fraction of Emin’s work and part of the show’s intention was to show how diverse her art was. “Tracey deals with things that everyone can relate to and on the surface she is talking about things that everyone, somehow, knows from their own life.” Tracey Emin: Love Is What You Want runs 18 May-29 August. Tracey Emin Art Art markets Museums Festivals London Mark Brown guardian.co.uk

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