LETTER FROM LONDON
It was one of the rare cultural events at the end of the year in London: inaugurated in mid-November, the cross-exhibition Tracey Emin-Edvard Munch at the Royal Academy of Arts, entitled “The Loneliness of the Soul” of the soul ”) had to close Tuesday, December 15, after the British capital was classified in the category of“ maximum alert ”, the Covid-19 epidemic there being sharply on the rise.
In three dark consecutive rooms, the enfant terrible of British arts has chosen twenty-five of his works – mainly canvases – and eighteen paintings by the Norwegian master of expressionism. They almost exclusively represent women, of all ages, suffering and bleeding a lot in Emin’s case. Emotion and loneliness dominate – two characteristics of the work of these artists, born exactly one hundred years apart, in 1863 for Munch, in 1963 in Croydon, south London, for Emin.
The Briton has admired the Norwegian since his very beginnings. His first visit to Oslo was in 1998. “I had just had a miscarriage, I was in total chaos”, she says in a documentary broadcast in early December on the BBC. On the spot, she made a video of herself, on a pontoon at the edge of the water (the same one that Munch had so often represented on his paintings). She is curled up like a fetus, then she starts screaming, in reference, of course, to Munch’s famous canvas (The Scream). The video is also on display at London’s White Cube gallery, featuring 50 giant selfies of the artist, 57, surprised in her sleepless nights. This second exhibition (“Tracey Emin: Living Under the Hunters Moon”) has also had to close its doors until further notice. “I am in love with Munch, not with his art, but with the man. I’ve loved him since I was 18 ”, assures again Emin at Guardian.
Haunted by disease, death and lit by a glimmer of hope
These exhibitions come at a serious time for the Briton. She confided in several long interviews, the first in Sunday Times end of October. His words are crude, full of disturbing details, but also very moving, just like his work – provocative but deeply honest. Her personal drama has received a lot of commentary in the national media: Emin enjoys international fame, she is a star of contemporary art. But not only. Her personal journey resembles a parable of the year 2020 for the British: she is haunted by disease, death and, in the end, lit by a glimmer of hope.
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