Bedtime stories
With My Bed, Tracey Emin turned one of her life’s great low points, a bedbound drinking spree, into a theatrical arrangement worthy of Jacobean tragedy: a violent mess of sex and death. Amid the yellowing sheets there are condoms, a tampon, a pregnancy test, discarded knickers and a lot of vodka bottles. It’s also very kitchen sink. That blue slab of carpet speaks of lonely rented rooms.
Supporting role
Historically, beds have largely had supporting roles in art: all those rumpled sheets on which nude women have flirtatiously turned their backs. Emin doesn’t turn coyly away here.
All hanging out
Her work always wears its heart, and more, on its sleeve. Lovers’ spats are lit up in neon. Everyone she ever slept with had their names embroidered inside a tent. It’s the bed, however, that’s the modern icon, partly thanks to its headline-grabbing inclusion in the 1999 Turner prize roundup.
Messed-up sheet
Its current pairing in a show with Turner’s paintings plays up both Emin’s formal sensitivity and her work’s expressionist lineage, the tousled sheets and stormy mood matching the Victorian artist’s emotive skies.
Tracey Emin: My Bed/JMW Turner, Turner Contemporary, Margate, to 14 January
