What you need to know
A major new exhibition of work by Tracey Emin, The Last Great Adventure is You, opens today at the White Cube gallery, Bermondsey. Emin's show features drawings, bronze sculptures, gouaches, large-scale embroideries and neon works.
The title, The Last Great Adventure is You, refers to a neon piece featured in the show, but also refers to Emin's larger body of work examining deeply personal aspects of her changing life and artistic career. Runs until 16 November.
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What the critics like
Emin's new exhibition is "a masterclass in how to use traditional artistic skills in the 21st century", says Jonathan Jones in The Guardian. The most important British artist of her generation bares her soul, deeply and movingly, in eerie, beautiful nudes, gouache, drawing, neon and bronze.
Emin's exhibition reveals "a talent that has grown calmer, more reflective, more reticent as it has matured", says Rachel Campbell-Johnston in The Times. This isn't just about exposing herself, it's a meditation on a personal voyage into the unmapped territories of menopausal middle age that seeks to uncover what feels like a more profound truth.
Emin's self-lacerating nudes prove that her work "has lost none of its energy or ability to provoke", says Karen Wright in The Independent. The show features seemingly effortless drawings, beautiful sewn works and simple cut-outs, but also works full of urgency such as the Grotto paintings.
What they don't like
"Like many a wild-child radical before her, Emin in middle age is repositioning herself as a traditionalist at heart", says Alastair Sooke in the Daily Telegraph, noting her use of life drawing and bronze-casting. But having gone back to school, she would have been wise to leave her homework out of public view.
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