:00:10. > :00:16.held in prison for a day longer. Now it is time for HARDtalk.
:00:16. > :00:20.Welcome to Margate, a traditional English seaside town, which is home
:00:20. > :00:26.to the turn up contemporary art gallery. My guest today is Tracey
:00:26. > :00:31.Emin. She was raised in Margate and who has become an artist of
:00:31. > :00:36.international renown. She has an exhibition currently on in her old
:00:36. > :00:41.home town. Her work is always deeply personal. She has made an
:00:41. > :00:46.extraordinary journey from Wilde used to peeler of the British
:00:46. > :00:56.cultural establishment. But just how blurred has the line being
:00:56. > :01:18.
:01:18. > :01:22.between her art and her life? Tracey Emin, welcome to heart talk.
:01:22. > :01:26.This is a very special exhibition for you. It is a homecoming. You
:01:26. > :01:34.put this on in the town that you were raised in as a teenager. I
:01:34. > :01:42.just wonder how much of the young Tracey Emin you feel is still in
:01:42. > :01:46.you? The whole show is about the fact that there is hardly any young
:01:46. > :01:50.Tracy a man in me any more, I'm nearly 50. The girl is never coming
:01:50. > :01:55.back. She lay down deep beneath the sea, it is the end of everything
:01:55. > :01:59.has been a goal. The understanding as an artist, I have maybe got 30
:01:59. > :02:03.years left of work, and I need to prioritise and see what is
:02:03. > :02:13.important to me. In the show, obviously, art is important to me.
:02:13. > :02:19.
:02:19. > :02:24.And this is a different kind of exhibition. How long has it taken
:02:24. > :02:28.for you to disconnect yourself from your past? Has it been a difficult
:02:28. > :02:32.process? I think that being an artist and using my memory for my
:02:32. > :02:36.work, I do not want to disconnect myself from my past completely, but
:02:36. > :02:42.I would like to see it from a different perspective. I would like
:02:42. > :02:45.to see it from the perspective of being an adult. I do not want to be
:02:45. > :02:51.a screaming adolescent girl when I nearly 50. I want to get some
:02:51. > :02:56.balance. But I don't want to be really boring. I want to develop.
:02:56. > :03:02.And push things further. I think that in the show, I have done bad.
:03:02. > :03:07.Does that process of maturing and changing, does it mean that you
:03:07. > :03:11.overcome a lot of the pain and the anger that seemed to be in your
:03:11. > :03:15.early work, and seemed to reflect so much of what happened to you as
:03:15. > :03:19.a young woman in Margate and elsewhere. I think that I'm
:03:19. > :03:26.actually lucky that I experienced so many things. I am a very
:03:26. > :03:31.passionate person. I have deeper emotions. Some of my friends say
:03:31. > :03:35.that I have containment issues. I'm constantly telling the truth. I am
:03:35. > :03:40.always saying things that you should not say. But I am making
:03:40. > :03:43.work about things that are a closed subject matter for a lot of people.
:03:43. > :03:47.The show is about understanding that there is a different kind of
:03:47. > :03:54.world. I always thought that love was about desire, being with
:03:54. > :04:03.someone and holding them. But that is not necessary. But it can take
:04:03. > :04:07.the form of lots of different guises. So it is blue embroidery,
:04:07. > :04:12.it is about experiencing it in a different way. I have never done
:04:12. > :04:16.that before. Maybe I did not understand love at all, all of my
:04:16. > :04:21.life. Maybe I have been running after the wrong things, or
:04:21. > :04:26.misunderstanding it. By working in developing these ideas, it helps me
:04:26. > :04:29.understand how I want my future to be. It is not just about art, in he
:04:29. > :04:34.is about leaving. You talk about love, that is
:04:34. > :04:40.interesting. A lot of people will associate your name a week very
:04:40. > :04:47.graphic art, not just drawing, but installation art and all sorts of
:04:47. > :04:51.different presentations which alluded to terrible abuse that you
:04:51. > :04:58.suffered. And also the way in which sex, for a time in your life,
:04:58. > :05:01.seemed to be very Loveless. Correct me if I am wrong. I wonder if that
:05:01. > :05:06.is your attitude to sex, has that changed?
:05:06. > :05:10.As I said, I am really 50, any woman watching this will know
:05:10. > :05:15.exactly what I'm talking about. I don't have sex any more. It is gone,
:05:15. > :05:20.it is a closed subject. It might come back, who knows. But at the
:05:20. > :05:26.moment, I'm interested in love and feelings and emotions and other
:05:26. > :05:30.things. And something that is not dependent upon last and desire. I
:05:30. > :05:32.am free from that. And I want to work with all of the other motion
:05:32. > :05:42.has. Are you tired of talking about the
:05:42. > :05:43.
:05:43. > :05:47.stuff that we -- was so explicit, in your earlier work? The failed
:05:47. > :05:51.relationships, the abuse that he suffered when you were very young?
:05:51. > :05:55.I don't have failed relationships any more, because I do not have
:05:55. > :06:00.relationships. My priority at my moment is my work. And about how I
:06:00. > :06:03.can develop it and what I can do. I still have all of those subject
:06:03. > :06:08.matters that our work with and I still work with them, but maybe in
:06:08. > :06:12.a more different way, or maybe I have exhausted doing it in one way,
:06:12. > :06:16.this squealing adolescent girl, maybe she does not have it any more
:06:16. > :06:22.energy. Maybe I need to sit down and think, what have I got, what
:06:22. > :06:27.can I work with? I can work with my hands and my knowledge and my love
:06:27. > :06:31.of art history. When you talk about the screamer
:06:31. > :06:37.stuff,r stuff, I wonder how you feel about
:06:37. > :06:43.it? Do you look back and think, one of the most famous works, my bed,
:06:43. > :06:47.which was the disabled bed, which whole of the signs of sexual
:06:47. > :06:53.relationships, it had the mess around the bed, it was so personal
:06:53. > :06:57.and so brutal and so on us, Kenya later that any more, is it
:06:57. > :07:01.difficult? Occasionally when it is shown, a few years ago in a number
:07:01. > :07:06.I had a 20-year retrospective and I had to keep reinstalling the bed,
:07:06. > :07:10.and every time I did it, every time I had to take a deep breath,
:07:10. > :07:14.because it was like really throwing myself back into the past, into a
:07:14. > :07:18.place which I would never be now. I would never have a bed like that. I
:07:18. > :07:24.can't even believe that I lived like that. But it was part of me
:07:24. > :07:29.and I accept that. I don't have any regrets about anything that I have
:07:29. > :07:31.done. It was a seminal piece of art that a lot of people recognise and
:07:31. > :07:36.identify a week, so I'm really pleased with it.
:07:36. > :07:39.The in terms of technique, I find it very interesting. You had a
:07:40. > :07:43.recent major retrospective at the Hayward Gallery. There were rooms
:07:43. > :07:46.in the gallery that you could look through and look at so many
:07:46. > :07:50.different objects taken from your own life, whether your bathroom or
:07:50. > :07:55.your bedroom or whatever. There was a sense in which I felt at times
:07:55. > :08:01.that it was almost going through a Tracey Eni Museum as much as an art
:08:01. > :08:04.gallery. The subject on display constantly, was you. When I was
:08:05. > :08:08.young there, I made work that was so close to me, it touched me.
:08:08. > :08:13.And in the beginning, a lot of people did not see it as being art.
:08:13. > :08:18.They could not relate to it as art. And still, people have a lot of
:08:18. > :08:22.difficulty with those works. But for me, it was just me making
:08:22. > :08:26.something with the reality of the subject. Instead of making a
:08:26. > :08:32.sculpture of it, I just used the real thing. To do that, it meant
:08:32. > :08:36.that I had to separate it from my mind. I had to take it out of the
:08:36. > :08:42.environment and put it into a different space. I had to create it
:08:42. > :08:46.and say, this is art. I had to defend it and justified it to the
:08:46. > :08:50.end. Two the day I die, I will still have to have arguments about
:08:50. > :08:55.taxi driver -- with taxi drivers about the bed. Some people must say,
:08:55. > :09:00.it is interesting, it is simply not art. But a lot of people don't
:09:00. > :09:04.understand I spent seven years at art school. I did not go through
:09:04. > :09:08.all of those things and become this, but nothing.
:09:08. > :09:13.Is there anything, that through your artistic Rea, you have always
:09:13. > :09:17.regarded as off-limits? Because so much of your life is out there, in
:09:17. > :09:22.your art, is there anything that you have not been able to touch.
:09:22. > :09:26.Lots of things. What? Like other people's lives, for example. When I
:09:27. > :09:32.was younger, I made a lot of what about my family. But then nobody
:09:32. > :09:36.knew why was, so it was OK for me to do that. I never had exhibitions,
:09:36. > :09:41.it was fine. Now I have made of Asians, I censor myself. I would
:09:41. > :09:45.never make a tent with the names of everybody that I ever slept with. I
:09:45. > :09:50.can't believe I ever did that. But nobody was interested in what are
:09:50. > :09:54.was doing, so it was time for me -- fine for me to do with it. I did
:09:54. > :09:58.not know what it would represent for other people. One more point on
:09:58. > :10:02.the past before I want to discuss what you are working on now, you
:10:02. > :10:07.said that you have had to live with people saying, it is not art, for
:10:07. > :10:12.so long. That does include critics. One of the most senior critics in
:10:12. > :10:18.the UK, Bryan Steel, I just want to quote you one thing that he wrote
:10:18. > :10:22.about you, because it may be sums up one field of criticism, he said
:10:22. > :10:28.- being Tracey Emin, is Tracey Emin's core activity. She barks,
:10:28. > :10:32.look at me, look at me, all the time. She is like some sort of
:10:32. > :10:37.fraudulent medieval Margaret relics. She puts on a show these trivial
:10:37. > :10:41.keepsakes of herself. When you get that sort of savage criticism, how
:10:42. > :10:47.deep does it could you? Typing that he is a very entertaining writer.
:10:47. > :10:50.He really does not like contemporary art. I don't know how
:10:50. > :10:58.much he likes women. He never writes nicely about women, in any
:10:58. > :11:04.circumstance. He also reduce cars. He is a jack of many traits. I
:11:04. > :11:09.would not take what he says too seriously. I think there is little
:11:09. > :11:13.bit of envy. He had a bit of jealousy of my lifestyle. Last year,
:11:13. > :11:18.he became one of many two women to be appointed professors of drawing
:11:18. > :11:23.at the Royal Academy. The only woman. The NRA is now a professor
:11:23. > :11:29.of painting. We are the only professors in the whole history of
:11:29. > :11:33.the Royal Academy. More than 250 years. Do you think that it is a
:11:33. > :11:37.very gender unequal Business, the make King of art? Definitely, but
:11:37. > :11:45.it has changed a lot since the Second World War. One of the big
:11:45. > :11:48.problems is, when women come to the front lot more, that was in the 70s.
:11:48. > :11:54.They used lots of throwaway materials that would not stand the
:11:55. > :11:58.test of time. Because even if they were really great artists, museums
:11:58. > :12:03.would not buy their work, because it would not survive. Many use
:12:03. > :12:08.heavy waited materials. But men peak when they are in their 40s.
:12:08. > :12:12.One big dined peak. And then they usually go down. Women, over 40,
:12:12. > :12:16.they just keep going on and on and getting better and better and it is
:12:16. > :12:24.like that with sex. Women keep coming, mangers ejaculate once. And
:12:24. > :12:28.that is how it is with art. But we don't have much proof of this.
:12:28. > :12:33.Because men don't like to talk about this subject. It is only in
:12:33. > :12:38.the last 30 years that women have become art historians, museum
:12:38. > :12:41.directors and curators. The art world is not just artists, it is
:12:41. > :12:45.about the whole art world that pushes this forward. When you look
:12:45. > :12:50.at your career, you have had great success, critical success and
:12:50. > :12:53.commercial success. Kenya. Two times in your career when you feel
:12:53. > :12:58.that your gender has worked against you, that it has been a real
:12:58. > :13:02.problem for you? No, not me. I was quite lucky. When
:13:02. > :13:07.I first went to art school, I had an interview and they asked me what
:13:07. > :13:14.I put about feminism, and a set, I don't. I said I don't think about
:13:14. > :13:18.it, I just get on with a -- with what I have to do. I was on the
:13:18. > :13:22.panel of a women's forum at the Tate and the subject of children
:13:22. > :13:26.came up. For a number of women, they stop making work for a number
:13:26. > :13:31.of years to have their families. It is to do with any career own
:13:31. > :13:34.profession. A lot of women, they want to be at the top of their
:13:34. > :13:38.career, for their own personal trajectory and journey, and that is
:13:38. > :13:42.very difficult if you have to take a family with you. It is
:13:42. > :13:49.extraordinarily difficult. That leads me to a quote that I was very
:13:49. > :13:54.struck by. I was reading about the Austrian artist, who does a lot of
:13:54. > :13:58.painting of human form. She has won a lot of awards. She is now in a
:13:58. > :14:03.90s and she said this - I do not understand young women who want to
:14:03. > :14:13.make art and have a big family. She said, don't think it is possible to
:14:13. > :14:17.This woman was 90. People sit at it's quite a controversial thing
:14:17. > :14:24.but many women achoo and they include artists but not great
:14:24. > :14:29.artists. That's the difference. It is not Picasso or and it will all.
:14:29. > :14:34.They are not kick-ins. Do you think it you had children you would move
:14:34. > :14:38.had been the Overture was a would not have been an artist I think
:14:38. > :14:46.Woodstock I would probably be delayed. It was good going to
:14:46. > :14:52.happen. My life in my creativity is something else and it's about me
:14:52. > :14:57.inventing things and creating things and being an artist and not
:14:57. > :15:05.a minute during mother. It's about events and art which exist in the
:15:05. > :15:11.world. That is what I am good at. Oh No! Again, going back to some of
:15:11. > :15:16.the trauma you have been through in your life, you had an abortion, he
:15:16. > :15:23.found that very tough. Is it part of your art that has been about
:15:23. > :15:27.that since of Rick rate and loss? It was about questioning abortion.
:15:27. > :15:33.It was not pro-choice all pro-life but about a woman going through
:15:33. > :15:41.that experience. That really helped a lot of women whether or not a la.
:15:41. > :15:44.I identified with me. Its members closed subjects. People get up in
:15:44. > :15:48.the morning and go to work and at an abortion in the afternoon in go
:15:48. > :15:54.back to what next day without telling anyone because they feel
:15:54. > :15:58.more of it and push him. If they have a sense of regret her not in a
:15:58. > :16:04.position to tell them because nobody would be sympathetic. At the
:16:04. > :16:09.UN what you will feel like until the be a bit? No-one wants to have
:16:09. > :16:15.an abortion. Choice situation at the time feeling what you have to
:16:15. > :16:20.do to survive all but Fullwood for what it reason. No-one ever wants
:16:20. > :16:24.to have an abortion. The at me ask you about money. Its key you have a
:16:24. > :16:32.brilliant entrepreneurial flair. You have been commercially
:16:32. > :16:37.successful. Making a lot money, and that's dive all your creativity?
:16:37. > :16:44.infinitely not. When you had not got the money to pay and gas bill,
:16:44. > :16:52.or electricity, and you only have enough money for one. I had a very
:16:52. > :16:57.poor upbringing as a child. I was very called a lot. Ice water and
:16:57. > :17:03.more are still poor would never be called. What really would stop her
:17:03. > :17:13.Mini occasions, be cause theories so to hide my work, he wants the
:17:13. > :17:17.
:17:17. > :17:22.one full eye clinic Collins at, awesome All York-New work I'll to
:17:22. > :17:28.you about quilts. Before the recession one of the galleries said
:17:29. > :17:34.he would be a big recession coming. We had in people that would what
:17:34. > :17:43.you will will and blankets. Start making more blankets balls stop I
:17:43. > :17:51.was building must use it. I set myself a light rather than make a
:17:51. > :17:57.blanket. Harvey it off in the opposite direction. I was like
:17:57. > :18:05.sulking child. On that subject, is it true about that terrible for her
:18:05. > :18:10.in the warehouse and one or it most famous works which you referred to
:18:10. > :18:17.about everybody you ever slept with, at got destroyed. Did the owner of
:18:17. > :18:22.that work or for you are vast amount of money to recreate it?
:18:22. > :18:29.They was the chance of �1 million to recreate it but I could not
:18:29. > :18:35.possibly recreate something at me in my small in water them. It took
:18:35. > :18:43.me six months. It was my idea of all my old clothes and nightdresses.
:18:43. > :18:51.Could not recreate that. All of that smacks of what you are present
:18:51. > :18:58.or to us. It's have committed you. It was a unique creation. You set
:18:58. > :19:04.up shop and went international. I went online. You can buy a big cups,
:19:04. > :19:11.months, balls, teachers and handbags. You want it in yourself
:19:11. > :19:17.into a wholly proper will brand. which the little shop did not make
:19:17. > :19:21.such a big profit. I am fully for people in the shop stop with us at
:19:21. > :19:25.the wheel full of artistic integrity? It means people can buy
:19:26. > :19:34.things directly from me and from a studio. I have a good commercial
:19:34. > :19:43.hit. They were no jobs will money back in the 80s and 90s it was very
:19:43. > :19:48.difficult. He won the galleries for collectors. Has changed in the last
:19:48. > :19:57.30 years, it's the normal and fantastic. It does mean again in
:19:57. > :20:05.Funes all where you have borne in your career, it's a raw Rebel yell
:20:05. > :20:10.that you unknown full. It's there a bit since then you are woven into
:20:10. > :20:17.the Establishment. You have commissioned by for Mitchell
:20:17. > :20:23.Torrance to sketch the Queen to mark Jubilee. I met the Queen here.
:20:23. > :20:27.I met her twice. It's not about the establishment. I've been around for
:20:27. > :20:33.20 years and I am not going away and the establishment is growing
:20:33. > :20:39.with us, it's the symbiotic thing. There is not a war going on. I am
:20:39. > :20:47.not a social adolescent punks speaking at everybody. I am nearly
:20:47. > :20:52.50 and I am taking seriously. I'm an artist. I'm respected. I enjoyed
:20:52. > :20:59.it. There is nothing wrong with that and I will not be cynical
:20:59. > :21:03.about things in my life, I want the best of every situation. It's not
:21:03. > :21:11.about the establishment. The Prime Minister is younger than me. Family
:21:11. > :21:18.enough, he introduced the idea. -- finally enough. You have taken some
:21:18. > :21:21.flak. Some say you have forgotten where you have come from. You were
:21:21. > :21:26.very public but voting for David Cameron. You support the
:21:26. > :21:34.Conservatives. You walk lower taxation. That has robbed a lot of
:21:34. > :21:38.people up the wrong way. I think they have forgiven me we're all
:21:38. > :21:47.stop this boroughs those comments, had not got me where I have come
:21:47. > :21:53.well. I have a brand new gallery only built last year. I am fighting
:21:53. > :21:57.for there is and what is to happen in every seaside town. The Tory
:21:58. > :22:03.government as good appreciation of bit parts. But they have cut the
:22:04. > :22:08.art budget. Also in that user and other artistic endeavours to say
:22:08. > :22:18.their particular field has been really badly damaged by the Tory
:22:18. > :22:20.
:22:20. > :22:26.cuts. Labour made some chronic cuts also. None more so than the Tories.
:22:26. > :22:36.There's no money. It is no money anywhere in the world. We eat up
:22:36. > :22:38.
:22:38. > :22:46.almost out of time but back tee all work and - you will work, and the
:22:46. > :22:56.way you admit you. What is next for you? You say that women peak much
:22:56. > :23:05.later. I have an exhibition in Argentina, on a series, and then in
:23:05. > :23:15.Rome, -- when a series, New York, Miami, and in a new space and that
:23:15. > :23:15.
:23:15. > :23:18.takes me up to 2014, I'm very busy. That is what I am doing. You had
:23:18. > :23:25.written in and neon sign or something right and you said I do
:23:25. > :23:31.not expect to be a mother but I do expect to do him. I wonder it we're
:23:31. > :23:41.supposed to win to put that in a bleak way? Knitted way? Is it make
:23:41. > :23:42.
:23:42. > :23:51.it? It is not negative. Its state of the fact. Not adding up family
:23:51. > :23:56.puts you in a different position. After media reasonable. What I do