Tracey Emin - A Second Life (Tate Modern)

Step into the tender, confessional world of Tracey Emin.

Dame Tracey Emin is one of the most important contemporary artists of her generation. She was catapulted into the public eye in the 1990s with iconic works like her Turner Prize nominated My Bed, which sparked fierce critical and public debate, challenging what art could be. Emin’s disregard for any separation of the personal and the public, along with her commitment to unapologetic self-expression, came to define a historic moment in British culture and global art history.

Broadening Emin’s story, this monograph celebrates her raw and confessional approach as she poses profound questions on love, trauma, and autobiography. It also demonstrates her lifelong commitment to painting, showing her recent work as the culmination of the ways she has channelled her life into her art.

Published alongside a major retrospective tracing 40 years of her groundbreaking practice, the publication reproduces Emin's career-defining sensations alongside works never exhibited before. Through painting, video, textiles, neons, writing, sculpture, and installation, Emin continues to challenge boundaries, using the female body as a powerful tool to explore passion, pain, and healing.

Maria Balshaw is Director of Tate. Previously, she was Director of the Whitworth, University of Manchester; Director of Manchester City Galleries; and Director of Culture for Manchester City Council. Maria is Chair of the National Museum Directors' Council and is a Trustee of the Factory International Board in Manchester. She is also a member of the Women Leaders in Museums Network and a member of the Bizot group of leading global museums. In 2015, she was awarded a CBE for services to the arts.

Alvin Li is Curator, International Art, Tate Modern

Josh Cohen was born in London, where he has lived most of his life. He established himself as an academic in American literature and critical theory, before deciding to train as a psychoanalyst. His books combine these influences, exploring major contemporary issues like privacy, work, meritocracy and anger through the lenses of psychoanalysis, culture and personal experience. His books include How to Read Freud (Granta, 2005), The Private Life: Why We Remain in the Dark (Granta 2013) Not Working: Why We Have to Stop (Granta, 2019), How to Live. What to Do: How Great Novels Help Us Change (Ebury, 2021) and Losers (Peninsula, 2021). He has published reviews and essays in The Guardian, New Statesman, Economist/ 1843, Granta, Aeon and TLS.

Johanna Hedva is a Korean American writer, artist, and musician, who was raised in Los Angeles.
Hedva is the author of four books, most recently the 2024 essay collection How To Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability, and Doom, published by Hillman Grad Books and Zando, which won the Amber Hollibaugh award for LGBTQ Social Justice writing, and was longlisted for a Goodreads Choice Award. They are the author of the novels Your Love Is Not Good, which Kirkus called a “hellraising, resplendent must read,” and On Hell, which was named one of Dennis Cooper’s favorites of 2018. They are also the author of Minerva the Miscarriage of the Brain, which collects a decade of work in poetry, plays, performances, and essays.

Helen was Provost and Deputy Vice-Chancellor at Kingston University before joining Oxford Brookes as Vice- Chancellor.

Before joining Kingston University, Professor Laville was Pro Vice-Chancellor (Education) at Manchester Metropolitan University from 2016 until 2021, after a 20-year career at the University of Birmingham culminating as the Head of School of English, Drama and American and Canadian Studies. She graduated with first-class honours from the University of Birmingham with a BA in Medieval and Modern History and has a PhD in American history from the University of Nottingham.

Helen is a Principal Fellow of Advance HE, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a Trustee of Hospice UK.