Art

‘My ego is insane.’ The first words to come out of Tracey Emin’s mouth should come as no surprise to those familiar with the artist’s self-loathing and self-centred practice. Since bursting onto the YBA art scene in the 1990s with her autobiographical embroidered quilts, neon scribbles and live nude painting performances, she has quite literally traded on her own identity and, more recently, on her new-found celebrity. Twenty years after her short-lived personal pantheon the Tracey Emin Museum opened on Waterloo Road (funded through a system of bonds redeemable against works of art), her handwriting has almost become a currency in its own right and her distinct flourishing signature, some would say, is a license to print money.
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Her name, now a commodity too, is more often associated with the pages of glossy magazines than with serious art journals and her sponsors are not just galleries like White Cube and collectors like Charles Saatchi but fashion houses such as Longchamp, for whom she designed a limited-edition ‘International Woman’ suitcase in 2004. She has her own newspaper column and recently published her memoirs to date, the disturbing but pleasurable book ‘Strangeland’. Yet her iconic status is undoubtedly a result of her achievements as a female artist.

Earlier this year she was made a Royal Academician and this week becomes only the third female British artist to represent her country at the prestigious Venice Biennale, the first since Rachel Whiteread in 1997. Here she reveals that it is not wealth or fame driving her on as an artist, but rather the cathartic process of exorcising her life’s many and varied traumas which keeps her pencil to paper and, for her Venice Biennale pavilion, brush to canvas.

Time Out: We hear your new work is more joyous and celebratory…
‘That’s an exaggeration. I have never been joyous or celebratory in my life. Most of the work in Venice is about the here and now. There are some drawings from 1994, but this is not me looking back. The paintings are very feminine and hands-on, but there isn’t much of my writing.’

Is this femininity a response to you being asked to represent Britain on this world stage?
‘No, I was making this kind of work before I even knew where Venice was. The title of the show is “Borrowed Light” and it spans a period of time, from being a girl to being a woman. Understanding where I am.’

Did some of that process come from writing ‘Strangeland’?
‘No, this is because I’m turning 44 soon. I’m middle-aged, middle-weight, in the middle of my career. I’m middle-everything, really. It’s been quite difficult to accept. I’d much rather be a mad, maverick girl, running around town screaming. But I can’t, time’s catching up with me.’

How do you feel about showing at Venice?
‘It’s an honour. It’s like being given something, but there is pressure too, because you only have eight or nine months to get your act together. Usually it takes me four years to do a big show. I spoke to other artists – Gary Hume, Gilbert & George – to find out how they dealt with it.’

Do you feel British?
‘I am British. My passport’s British, I was born in London. My dad’s Turkish-Cypriot, my mum’s from the East End. It’s not all about England anymore. If you think it is, you’d better wake up. I’m definitively multicultural British. It’s good.’

What do you think about being split up by nation at Venice?
‘If pavilions of contemporary art decided the differences in the world, it would be fucking brilliant – we’d be living in a nicer, kinder place. We’d be sitting around in cafes arguing about the difference between Joseph Beuys and Franz West.

Unfortunately, that’s not what global leaders are arguing about. I’m the antithesis of Blair because I’m not a diplomat, I’m not conservative. I’m a strong, feisty, mouthy female. When Ed Ruscha represented America he showed ice-cold work, so it’s exciting when a country gets the right artist at the right time. You realise the world isn’t how it’s perceived to be.’

Would you make a political statement by putting two fingers up in your work?
‘No, I’m too preoccupied with my own myopic state, thank you very much. I did make a couple of blankets of the US flag. An American museum director said to me, “With your attitude, you’ll never show here” – and that was it. Fuck you. So I made a blanket in response to that. The other was after 9/11, but in terms of sticking my fingers up, I don’t really do that.’

Why have you returned to painting?
‘I haven’t returned. My first painting show was in 1996 [at Andreas Brandström’s Stockholm gallery], and then in Oxford in 2002, at White Cube two years ago and in Cologne last year. I did an MA in painting at the RCA and I’ve just been made a Royal Academician for painting. It’s not like I can’t paint, it’s just that I haven’t painted. I haven’t shown these paintings before.’

What do you think about the Royal Academy as a male-only club?
‘I did a TV programme about that and was proved very wrong. They had two female founder members and have consistently invited women to become academicians.’

You have never shied away from public life.
‘I don’t intend to, either. There are not many artists who go on “Dame Edna” or “Wogan” – it’s good for art. Art should not be locked up in a tower. It’s for everybody.’

People look up to you now. Has that mellowed you?
‘Do you think I’m mellow? No, I still get angry and come out spitting like a rott-weiler. I get pissed too, but now I get my kicks from five glasses of wine, not by drinking a bottle of whisky, staying out all night and getting up the next day to fly to Japan or New York for a show. I’m not like that any more. But I’m glad I had it.’

Was your life like one long performance piece back then?
‘From the outside, my life still is, although really I’m quite a cosy person.’

What’s your next learning curve?
‘I wish I could stop drinking. I’ve stopped smoking, but if I could stop drinking I think my life would be a lot more fulfilled. I’d like to be able to balance my time better, to suffer from fewer mood swings. That’s my age again, probably. But I shouldn’t really complain and beat myself up. I’m doing all right, my life’s pretty good.’

Tracey Emin is at the British Pavilion of the Venice Biennale, June 10-Nov 21. See www.britishcouncil.org for more details.