A Second Life
Emin’s early work constantly looked back to the truths and confessions of her past, to what had made her the artist she was in the 90s. Letters, home footage, oral history— all trying to piece together the tapestry of who she is, or at least curating a certain type of identity for the outward world. Now in Tracey Emin’s new exhibition ‘A Second Life’, past and present collide once again. Now 62, Emin revisits her earlier work, placing different eras side by side to create a striking sense of temporal collapse. From her notorious 1990s pieces to her neon works and previously unseen material, the exhibition feels like a conversation across time, writes Leo Dunlop.
But how is it that we understand Emin and her work in 2026? What proves hard to reconcile is how her Brit Art identity – that ‘new’ artist of the 1990s, a new kind of woman – was once so precisely defined, has since become so ubiquitous that it risks dissolving into the very culture it once disrupted. The idea of Emin-esque has fallen into a parody of itself. That hot-headed, sexual, imperfect persona has become the costume of almost every art student in London, making it hard to understand what could make her work important in this decade beyond its historical significance.
Her Turner Prize-nominated ‘My Bed’ provoked fierce critical and public debate when first shown in the 90s but has now become inane Instagrammable content – I had already seen much of Emin’s new exhibition through social media stories before I was able to actually attend the show. Nothing about it asks any questions of the audience anymore; it has been rendered mundane and known. This shouldn’t take away from the importance it had at the time, but it’s been damaged by the lack of rebellion a piece like this offers in contemporary culture… We know it too well.
The impact of the piece now is suspended in time, much like the work itself. None of this is a fault of Emin herself; rather, it speaks to the exhibition’s central tension. The show is deeply concerned with confronting her past and interrogating where her artistic identity now sits: as a woman in her 60s, wounded by health problems, ageing, chronic pain, and a cancer survivor. It exists in that uneasy space between who she was and who she is now, and how she is perceived in both contexts.
This tension is most profoundly captured in a corridor within the exhibition, where Emin sets two different series of Polaroid self-portraits (2001 and the others 2020-5) in direct dialogue or even a kind of quiet argument.
The specificity of her introspection allows the audience to see themselves reflected back. The power and joy of her work is exactly that relatability: the things we conceal, Emin lays bare. In that exposure, we find comfort in the shared experience. These details can veer into the slightly irritating or naive voice of the inner monologue of a teenager, but perhaps that is precisely the point? There has to be a genius to Taylor Swift to be so relatable to teenage girls, right? Emin has that buzzing energy, that strong-headed momentum of an art student who utterly believes in themselves and their work.
Walking through ‘A Second Life’, I was made to rediscover Emin as a modern identity. She is now a fully formed, well-drawn character in my mind, and that has to be to the success of the exhibition. Whether I’m persuaded by her work or not, the ability to curate such a deeply human sense of self is a significant achievement – a testament as much to the layout of the exhibition as to the work itself. Emin allows her whole self to be seen, admired, and pitied even. The exhibition is brimming with her ego and her vulnerability, her talent and her suffering. Those who love Emin will adore this exhibition, and those who don’t will be made to ask themselves why.
Tracey Emin’s ‘A Second Life’ will continue to be shown at the Tate Modern until the 31st of August 2026.
Booking and full details: https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/tracey-emin
