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 PrintableVersion Something's wrongPeter Comont visits an exhibition of Tracey Emin's workShe is known as the bad girl of modern art. Tracey Emin is famous for exhibiting her unmade bed (My Bed, 1998) as a nominee for the 1999 Turner Prize. Her work has been described as crude, primitive, uninteresting, ill-informed and objectionable. She herself has been described as narcissistic, vulgar, a bully and a con-artist. It was therefore with some trepidation that my wife and I entered the Modern Art Oxford (formerly The Museum of Modern Art) to view her latest exhibition, This is Another Place. Tracey Emin was born in 1963 in Margate. Her Turkish Cypriot father admits to having fathered 23 children and during Tracey's childhood he was maintaining two families. He was therefore, understandably, only intermittently present. Tracey's mother set virtually no limits for her. At the age of 13 she was raped. In her mid-teens she had a period of extreme promiscuity, while in her 20s she had a couple of bad affairs and had two abortions. The first, performed in 1990, 'went wrong' and the second, in 1992 was done 'without heart'. In 1992 she committed emotional suicide. She explains that: 'Emotional suiside [sic] is killing your self - without dying - destroyed each - friendship + relationship - one - by one - till I was alone -destroyed all my art - left my studio - through [sic] away my curtains - my carpet - my cusions [sic] my comfort - made my home a cell - + waited -'. Ironically this was the moment when the tide turned for Emin. Today she is one of the most bankable commodities in modern art. Brave new voice?So is Tracey Emin an attention-seeking charlatan or a brave new voice in the world of art? We went to Modern Art Oxford to decide for ourselves. The exhibition is obviously designed to shock. Neon lights shout obscenities at us, and then portray a quivering female figure. Emin loves to portray herself as both the bully and the bullied. In the rooms beyond there are numerous sketches of herself, naked and vulnerable. They are far from erotic; rather they portray a profound discomfort with her body and seem designed to make us turn away in disgust. There are large blankets with applique designs on them. The medium is homely and comfortable but the messages are austere and disconcerting. They explore her loneliness, her experiences of racism, her lost children, and her anxiety about death. One particularly shocking brown blanket portrays her lying exposed after one of her abortions with the graphic message scrawled at the top - 'Something's Wrong' Viewing the darknessShould Christians view this sort of thing? It is not for everyone and it certainly it is not 'noble... pure...' or 'lovely'. However it is not going to tempt Christians into sin. It actually shows with shocking honesty the darkness of Emin's world. The apostle Paul says to the Corinthians: 'I have written to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people - not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world.' Paul himself 'looked carefully' at the idolatrous images in Athens in order to find an appropriate way of explaining the gospel. Jesus himself associated with tax-collectors and prostitutes precisely because he came as doctor for those who know they are sick. I have no doubt that the prostitutes of Jesus's day would recognise Tracey's world. But is this art?If art is about beauty then it is not. Her work is ugly, and even at times repulsive. If good art requires that the artist be technically skilled then she also fails this test. Emin herself is aware that she is 'not visually the best artist in the world'. But perhaps art is also about truth. It is here that she is deceptively powerful. The cumulative effect of her work builds up a picture of a troubled and damaged soul. All her work is overtly 'Eminocentric', and what we learn about its subject is deeply distressing and all too common. She is exploring the dark side of life in the modern world and she does it with a vividness and brutality which is shockingly true. Everything is meaninglessIn walking through the exhibition I was reminded of the stark nihilism of the Teacher in Ecclesiastes as one piece declared 'the altimate [sic] fear is to know and I know'. A large brightly coloured blanket declares, 'I don't expect to be a mother but I do expect to die alone'. At the bottom is the appliqued message, 'she went out like a 40 watt light bulb'. I felt I had seen what it was like to be 'without hope and without God in the world'. There are moments when she seemed to have glimpsed some of the horrors that John saw in the Book of Revelation. Sometimes she displays all the aggressive belligerence of those in Revelation 16 who 'gnawed their tongues in agony and cursed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, but they refused to repent of what they had done'. At other times she seems 'harassed and helpless like [a] sheep without a shepherd' or, to use one of her favourite metaphors, like a fragile small bird. My wife and I could immediately think of several people whom we care for, whose private world is just as brutal and vulnerable as the world of the self styled 'Mad Tracey from Margate'. There is a madness about her work, and it is understandable that much of the world mocks. But sometimes it is the fools who tell the truth. Tracey shouts a thoroughly biblical truth at us ù Something's wrong. Sadly she and millions like her haven't yet found the one who hears the desire of the afflicted and listens to their cry. Surely it is for us to listen so that we may speak of Christ. Peter Comont,
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