Sex and solitude
Keeping pace with the slogan “the personal is the
political” the art exhibition of Tracey Emin in Florence -Palazzo Strozzi,
close to the Republican square- entitled “Sex and solitude” seeks its historical
echo in time relation to that kind of culture approaching entangled issues
such as the male-female gaze, the female voice, the monstruous-feminine and the
productive female source explored as rebirth and self-consciousness through art
and maturity.
In the beginning of the exhibition, we come across the
artist in a younger age on duty. The participatory body is part of the art process
that leads to the personal development throughout the years. Tracey Emin used
to work 18 hours per day as an artist. As she explains in the video framing the
exhibition, she just wanted to be an artist, she did not concur to any
compromise and other jobs in order to pursue her dream. The dream was alive as
long as she was living as an artist.
On the left side of the corridor that introduces us to
what Tracey Emin aims to achieve, we gaze at the artist´s room possibly, full
of connotations that refer to family relations, gender issues, sex as a legacy
and past roots. It seems to be the theory of both process and perception. Vivid
colors, strong writing, capital letters sometimes build the history of the mind
trying to explore complex subjects of intersubjectivity and communication in
all levels. The room is a laboratory and a simulation of the mind itself. Tracey
Emin managed to give the female wave its intellectual asset of thinking in
between the lines, as a person and persona, as an artist and a woman, indeed.
After being introduced into the essence of her artwork, we can feel the power of the paintings that are living representations of sex and solitude. Sex as relation and solitude as post-relation. Actually, it would not be recommendable to split time into these categories. Sex and solitude can coexist, too. In some cases, it is not clear when solitude cultivates sex and when the latter brings it to the fore. The two SS are the modern couple of our era embedded in AI, social media practices and cut communication. Whilst the theory of communication used to be a dialogue of souls, nowadays we cannot live in our souls´ party on condition that we become capable of provoking our desire and its terms.
Tracey Emin builds her art unique identity on a narrative of desire in time as well as against linear time. Instinct and intuition meet color. The paintings speak to our bodies as hypertexts because they remain parts of her blood and body somehow. They are fragments of a whole and the invisible creative archetype. This is possibly the reason why she isolates some of the figures and presents them to us in a parallel way, while we meet her figures.
Recalling both Lévi-Strauss and Georges Bataille on the occasion of the exhibition, I can feel how symbolism and desire become visual and articulate their impact in the series of paintings of Tracey Emin.
A must see for every artist today.
Lights on Tracey Emin.
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