The moment the art world first saw *My Bed* at the 1999 Turner Prize exhibition the word that circulated was “scandal.” Dirty sheets, empty vodka bottles, used tissues: what happens when an artist moves her actual lived space into a gallery, exactly as it was? More than twenty-five years have passed. *My Bed* is now at Tate Modern, at the centre of the most comprehensive retrospective of Tracey Emin’s forty-year practice.
Autobiography as an Art Form
To understand Emin’s practice, you first need to name what it does accurately: autobiography. But don’t let the word become comfortable. When Emin moves the personal into public space, she uses it not as confession but as an instrument of inquiry. What did I feel, how did I feel it, what does it mean to be inside this body these are the questions that underlie every work.
Painting, video, textiles, neon light, writing, sculpture, installation: this movement across mediums signals that what Emin wants to say cannot be contained in a single form. A neon sign can sometimes speak more personally than a journal entry; a bed can sometimes say more than any written confession.
“A Second Life”: Meanings Inside the Title
“A Second Life” opens onto more than one reading. Rebirth? The artist reconstructing her own narrative after a health crisis? Or a practice simply continuing on its own terms, independent of how the world has chosen to see it? The exhibition leaves these questions open; when forty years of practice become visible simultaneously, the viewer is required to construct their own answer.
The show also keeps Emin’s current work at its centre. Retrospectives often carry the risk of historicising a living artist. This exhibition places Emin’s recent paintings alongside career-defining works, locating the artist firmly in the present tense.
A Significant Moment for British Art
Emin is one of the most significant figures to emerge from the Young British Artists (YBAs) generation. The Turner Prize nomination, the 2014 Christie’s sale of *My Bed* for £2.2 million, and dozens of international solo exhibitions have made her a permanent figure not only in British art but on the international stage.
She was made a Dame in 2013 a mark of how thoroughly British institutions have absorbed her practice but what makes Emin most interesting is that she continues to be fragile and unsettling while carrying that institutional recognition. The two things coexist without resolving.
Tracey Emin: A Second Life at Tate Modern
- When is the exhibition and how much are tickets?
*Tracey Emin: A Second Life* is on until 31 August 2026 at Tate Modern, Eyal Ofer Galleries, Bankside, London SE1 9TG. Tate Members enter free; for standard ticket pricing visit tate.org.uk. Members also have early-morning access every Saturday and Sunday, 09:00–10:00.
- Why does *My Bed* matter?
*My Bed* (1998) is the work in which Emin transported her actual lived environment unwashed sheets, empty bottles, used objects into the gallery exactly as it was. Its Turner Prize nomination opened a wide public debate about what art is and is not, and that debate is what made the work permanent.
- What period of Emin’s practice does the exhibition cover?
Forty years in total from her early work to the present. Recent paintings are included alongside career-defining pieces, meaning the retrospective presents a living practice rather than a historical survey.
NO-26 Note
This is one to see before it closes at the end of August. Emin’s practice is a reminder that looking at art can be uncomfortable — but the discomfort here isn’t empty provocation. It’s the accumulated weight of forty years of honesty.
