There’s been much furor ahead of Tracey Emin’s latest exhibition, ‘I Cried Because I Love You’, not least because it is her first solo venture in greater China – and rumoured to be her last before she embarks on a yearlong sabbatical. Opened this week to coincide with Art Basel fair in Hong Kong, the frenzy surrounding the British artist’s major new show might only be overshadowed by the startling revelation she married a large, ancient stone in her garden in southern France last summer.
Spread over White Cube and Lehmann Maupin galleries in Central, the exhibition brings together older pieces alongside new paintings, drawings, embroideries and neon works. A narrative centred on her impromptu union (wearing her father’s funeral shroud in lieu of a wedding dress, no less) threads the duet of shows – fittingly, two become one.
‘It’s about me being able to not have to define myself within a gallery, within a space, within a country,’ she explains in the exhibition catalogue to Carl Freedman. ‘I can just make my work and show it, that’s what’s important to me.’ To wit, the show is typically Emin: unabashedly confessional in its nude drawings of splayed female figures; yearning words scrawled in light and across canvases; and raw, explosive brushstrokes.
Emin doesn’t deviate far from the artist we know, yet, her new works seem bolstered by a newfound sense of self-acceptance, perhaps the result of her recent union. ‘You can find people to have sex with, but, you know, loving them is something else,’ she said. The marriage to the stone (it’s not a rock, Emin insists) is a metaphor about the longing to be with someone and the stability that comes with enduring love.
‘It’s my life. I think I’ve cried over more people that I love than people that I hate. I don’t think I’ve really hated hardly anyone,’ she has said. ‘I think my big mistake is loving people too much.’ However droll Emin is, the more she chastises journalists, the bitterer her acerbic tongue becomes: the more we try to love her.
Spread over White Cube (installation view pictured) and Lehmann Maupin galleries in Central, the exhibition brings together older pieces alongside new paintings, drawings, embroideries and neon works. © Tracey Emin. Courtesy of White Cube.
All I want is You, 2015. © Tracey Emin. Courtesy of Lehmann Maupin and White Cube.
Some of the works in the show were in part inspird by her impromptu wedding cermony to a stone in her garden in the south of France last year. Pictured: Spending time with you, 2015. © Tracey Emin. Courtesy of Lehmann Maupin and White Cube.
Emin’s union with the stone becomes a metaphor for stability and enduring love. Pictured: Hurt heart, 2015. © Tracey Emin. Courtesy of Lehmann Maupin and White Cube.
‘It’s about me being able to not have to define myself within a gallery, within a space, within a country,’ she explained. Pictured: installation view at White Cube. © Tracey Emin. Courtesy of White Cube.
I love you, 2015. © Tracey Emin. Courtesy of Lehmann Maupin and White Cube.
The exhibition takes it name from a new neon work, ’I Cried Because I Love You’, 2016. © Tracey Emin. Courtesy of Lehmann Maupin and White Cube.
A narrative centred on her impromptu marriage threads the duet of shows. © Tracey Emin. Courtesy of Lehmann Maupin and White Cube.
Another love story, 2011-2015. © Tracey Emin. Courtesy of Lehmann Maupin and White Cube.
Installation view of ’I Cried Because I Love You’ at Lehmann Maupin gallery. © Tracey Emin. Courtesy of Lehmann Maupin and White Cube.
Waiting for Morning, 2015. © Tracey Emin. Courtesy of Lehmann Maupin and White Cube.
INFORMATION
‘I Cried Because I Love You’ runs until 21 May across White Cube and Lehmann Maupin galleries. For more information visit the White Cube website
ADDRESS
Lehmann Maupin
4/F, Pedder Building
12 Pedder Street
White Cube
50 Connaught Road
-
Where Saltie Girl met SweetBoy: how an LA pastry chef and his Boston restaurateur mother accidentally created a family businessThe collaboration between foodie duo Kathy and Ben Sidell sprinkles sugar dust over a West Hollywood haunt
-
Wallpaper* checks in at Rwanda’s Wilderness Bisate Reserve: ‘There are few lodges more magical than this’Located south of Volcanoes National Park, the exclusive Wilderness Bisate Reserve caters equally to sybarites and the gorilla-obsessed
-
Paris Fashion Week Men’s A/W 2025 highlights: Auralee to Louis VuittonParis Fashion Week Men’s A/W 2025 began yesterday with Pharrell Williams’ celebration of a ‘friendship for life’ with streetwear legend Nigo. Reporting from Paris, Wallpaper* fashion features editor Jack Moss picks the best of the week, as it unfolds
-
Switzerland’s best art exhibitions to see in 2025Art fans, here’s your bucket list of the standout exhibitions to see in Switzerland in 2025, exploring compelling themes and diverse media
-
Out of office: what the Wallpaper* editors have been doing this weekA snowy Swiss Alpine sleepover, a design book fest in Milan, and a night with Steve Coogan in London – our editors' out-of-hours adventures this week
-
What to look out for at Art Basel Miami Beach 2024Art Basel Miami Beach returns for its inaugural edition under new director Bridget Finn, running 6-8 December, with 286 international exhibitors and a packed week of parties, pop-up, and special projects
-
Miu Miu’s Women’s Tales film series comes to life for Art Basel ParisIn ‘Tales & Tellers’, interdisciplinary artist Goshka Macuga brings Miu Miu’s Women’s Tales film series for Art Basel Paris to life for the public programme
-
Art Basel returns to Paris: here is everything to see and doArt Basel Paris 2024 (18 - 20 October 2024) returns, opening at the newly renovated Grand Palais
-
‘This blood that is flowing is my blood, and that should be a positive thing’: Tracey Emin at White CubeTracey Emin’s exhibition ‘I followed you to the end’ has opened at White Cube Bermondsey in London, and traces the artist’s journey through loss
-
‘Happy birthday Louise Parker II’: enter the world of Roe EthridgeRoe Ethridge speaks of his concurrent Gagosian exhibitions, in Gstaad and London, touching on his fugue approach to photography, fridge doors, and his longstanding collaborator Louise Parker
-
Es Devlin and BMW reveal hydrogen-fuelled collaboration at Art Basel 2024Es Devlin and BMW celebrate the potential of hydrogen power in installations unveiled at Art Basel 2024, including a take on the BMW iX5 Hydrogen
