Tracey Emin, artist: I’ve been given a second chance

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0:30the highest b2b return on ad spend of major ad networks spend 250 on your first campaign on linkedin ads and get 250 credit for the next one just go to linkedin.com slash broadcast that's linkedin.com slash broadcast terms and conditions apply the sun shining birds are singing and all feels right in the world until the season changes and suddenly you lose your motivation to get out of bed in fact one in five people experience some form of depression no matter the season or time of year. At the American Psychiatric Association Foundation, our vision is to build a mentally healthy nation for all, because we want you to live your best life and be your best you all year round.

1:12Please visit mentallyhealthynation.org to learn more. Hello, I'm BBC presenter Emma Barnett, and this is the interview from the BBC World Service. The best conversations coming out of the BBC. People shaping our world from all over the world. If you're not a little bit afraid, then you're not paying attention. We have never seen a people so united. Do not make that boat crossing. Do not make that journey. Being born in America, feeling American, having people treat me like I'm not. We're more popular than populism. For this interview, I met the British artist Dame Tracey Emin here at the BBC in London.

1:55She rose to fame in the 90s as a total disruptor of the art world, a member of the YBAs, remember them? Young British artists. Her work, such as the sculpture My Bed, gained widespread media attention and caused a fair share of controversy. Having been at the forefront of the modern art scene for over three decades, a solo exhibition, her biggest to date, has now opened at the Tate Modern in London, showcasing 40 years of her work. She's well known for channelling her life experiences into her art. Following a difficult childhood, in which, among many things, she survived sexual abuse, Emin battled alcohol addiction throughout her adult life.

2:35However, she gave up drink after being diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer in 2020, which is now in remission. Tracey Emin views this whole experience and surviving cancer as a second life. When you've been really nihilistic in your life, when you've been younger, and then you feel sort of for want a better, yeah, second life, you've been given a second chance. Maybe I felt remorseful as well about the indulgence of how I lived and what I did and how I, but I was, everyone, you know, like, alcoholics don't want to be alcoholics. you know drug abusers don't want to be drug addicts people don't choose to be that way they became that way and it's really hard to put the brakes on and say right now it's gonna stop and now I'm gonna treat my life differently now I'm gonna have more respect for me now I'm gonna clean this up do that now I'm gonna survive now I'm gonna go forward people say to me what would you say to your younger self or those kind of questions?

3:45And I said, the main thing I'd say is that everything's going to be all right. Welcome to the interview from the BBC World Service with Tracey Emin. I've got one of those imaginations. So for example, I have a friend that he can't imagine anything, whereas me, I am the complete, absolute opposite. So if you say to me there's two mice sitting on a seashell I immediately see the mice sitting on the seashell I can tell you what they're wearing woolly scarves what they're doing what they're eating little bits of cheese in their hand I see the whole thing right clearly and it's the same with pain so if you ask me to describe my pain that I'm in right now I will tell you in the lower part of my spine it feels like someone's got a biro and they're sticking it between the cartilages and know just moving it up and down slightly that sounds painful and it is painful and again and again any pain that I have I can describe it really visually really easy for you to see and I think that's also got something to do with being an artist because an artist you conjure you pull these things out of you especially with painting that never existed there before and I think being in so much pain with the cancer and what happened.

5:04I don't mean it was lucky, but I think it's kind of good that it happened to me. Because I could do something with it. Squamous cell cancer, that's what you were diagnosed with, for people who don't know. Really serious. Yeah, it's incurable when it's inside you. You had a very long operation, seven and a half hour, I believe, removing bladder, lymph nodes, half of your vagina, urethra part of your bowel and a full hysterectomy have i missed anything yeah i mean what a shopping list and no there was something and i said to my surgeon is that it have you finished and he went no there's also this 20 chance you won't make the surgery you might have a heart because you're out for so long and they've given me six months to live without the surgery and then also what people don't realize with that surgery if they leave the tiniest bit because the cancer is so aggressive It just goes crazy.

6:00It's like... And then it would be game over. Yeah, exactly. Your relationship with your body has been a big part of, you know, some of your work. How is your relationship with your body now? I've never been on anorexic, but I would only eat when I was hungry. My body was just full of muscle. When I look at pictures when I was young, I'm thinking, what was my... Like, work that's in the tape at the moment. you've got these naked photos of me when I was like 30 31 or something I hated my body at that time and the whole point of doing this thing naked was to try and come to terms with my awful body and I look at those photos now and I think my god what was I worried about it's incredible my body my mum said this really good thing my mum's dead now but a couple of years before she died I was sitting there sort of looking really grumpy my mum said to me Tracy what's wrong and I said I'm so old.

6:52And my mum looked at me and she pointed at herself and she said, Tracy, this is old. In 10 years time, you're going to say the same thing. And how old are you now? I'm 62. Yeah, 63 this year. It doesn't matter if you have this thing, when you look in the mirror, that you don't like your body, you can't shake it off. We're speaking now ahead of the show opening your big exhibition, A Second Life. You've been prolific in recent years. I know you never stopped working, but there's been a huge amount but I was also thinking that Marina Abramovich I interviewed her just before her show opened in 2023 at the Royal Academy and I had to check that this was right it was the first solo retrospective to be given to a woman at the Royal Academy and it was 2023 yeah well me and Fiona Ray were the first female professors ever at the Royal Academy in 235 years or something.

7:47It is still very regressive. It is still backwards thinking. Not the Royal Academy, but the world. The world in general. Do you identify as a feminist? Yeah, of course I do. You do, yeah. I mean, for some, they don't like the certain things around it. I've never thought to ask you that, but just thought of it then. The reason why you haven't thought to ask me it is because you shouldn't have to identify as a feminist, should you? You should just be able to be a woman doing what you have to do. And a lot of young people, girls I speak to, don't want to identify as feminists. I had an argument with a lot of them, and they said that feminism was pathetic, it was over, it didn't stand up to anything.

8:28And I said, what are you talking about? I said, as we sit here now, around the corner, there is a woman locked in a cupboard being beaten. There is someone threatening to set themselves alight because they can't cope with the misogyny and the way that they're treated within their home or their family or their life. There's someone else being raped every day by a member of their family. The list is relentless. So feminism isn't just about we should get equal pay. It's about we should get equal rights and be supported and be looked after, be championed as women and be respected. That's what it's about.

9:06And that still isn't happening. Well, the chasm between what we've allegedly got in law and how it is in society is huge. It's huge. I mean, even just it's a small example. Your examples are much more urgent around abuse, physical abuse of women. And you're right, that will be happening right now, which is a really sobering point. But the example just in the art world of who's had a show and who hasn't and we've got to 2023, it might sound tame compared to rape and abuse, but it is still sobering. Well, no. When there was the show at the Royal Academy, Marina's show, the Royal Academy said, oh, this is going to be a year where, you know, we might have low attendance figures, low visitor numbers because we have Marina's show.

9:49I said, what are you talking about? And they said, well, we do this. They do this sort of demographic thing. And they said, you know, our usual supporters, the Royal Academy won't relate to Marina's work. I said, no, they won't. But a whole load of young people will who've never been to the Royal Academy before. It's one of the best attended shows for a living artist. It was absolutely incredible. On the opening, you couldn't get in. They'd over-sent out too many invites. But it was like, why? Why was she the first woman? I don't know. What did they think? I had my show there with Edvard Munch and I could have easily filled up the big gallery.

10:26My show in Oslo was twice the size of the show at the Royal Academy. Your work has always been described by some as confessional. You felt at times people maybe viewed it as narcissistic. And yet at the same time, you could argue the world caught up, you know, with the Me Too movement, with what has gone on with the various unveilings of abuse, like more coming into the light, not everything by any stretch. And you were raped and abused as a very young girl. and I just wonder we're talking at a time where you know more than a million files to do with Jeffrey Epstein have been released as a journalist I've tried to read through you can anyone can go on the Department of Justice website and read through it but what's your response to that sort of uncovering and revealing even though it's redacted what I think's really interesting about or the Epstein stuff is that now people are going to think this is what happens over there.

11:25I don't mean that by America. I mean over there. These are rich CEOs, politicians, people, ambassadors, people of power, and these people have money and power and these people can do this when actually the same thing is happening in a small village just down the road. The same thing is happening in a big city in the UK. It's not about power. It's about the lack of power that these people have and how they indoctrinate and how they use by undermining grooming and using young girls for sex. Who does that? And I think the shame aspect of it, like I made a whole piece of work, you know, about that, about the shame.

12:11I will not feel ashamed of what happened to me when I was a child and what happened to me when I was a teenager. I won't. I will make art about it. I will talk about it. You're listening to The Interview from the BBC World Service. The best B2B marketing gets wasted on the wrong people. So when you want to reach the right professionals, use LinkedIn ads. LinkedIn has grown to a network of over 1 billion professionals, including 130 million decision makers. And that's where it stands apart from other ad buys. You can target your buyers by job title, industry, company, role, seniority, skills, company revenue, so you can stop wasting budget on the wrong audience.

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13:44I've been talking to Dame Tracey Emin, who's putting on a show, the biggest of her career at the moment, at the Tate Modern in London. It's called Second Life because she survived cancer. And she really is attacking life in a whole new way. And I was very struck by the joy that emanates from Tracey at this point of her life. but also her harrowing experience of life and all that it can throw of you. I mean, the pain that she has survived, not least struggling with endometriosis and now having to, you know, have all sorts of changes to her life because of the operations needed to survive the cancer.

14:22And yet there's so much joy and there's so much life. We met of a morning here at the BBC and her love of art, her love of life. and there was also a lot of candor and things that some people would find very hard to talk about. She just runs that, which I love. OK, let's return to that conversation with Tracey Emin. I wanted to ask about going into an art gallery. What would you say to somebody who either thinks art isn't for them or lacks the confidence to go into that space as an adult? Let's say they've not had it as a kid and they think, nah, that's not for me. How could you entice somebody to think like that, do you think?

15:01all right i'd say like so i'm not religious christian anything like that but i when i used to live in spitalfields i used to love going into christ church spitalfields because i like the architecture i like the space i like the quietness of it all and i liked how it made me feel and often i'll go into different churches i look at the stained glass you know the architecture or whatever. I just want to go into that space, that hallowed space, because it makes me feel different from when I went in to when I came out. It's exactly the same with an art gallery. You don't have to know about art. You don't have to think you can respond to art or know about art or know about art history or make art.

15:44When you go into the art museum or the art gallery, you go in and you will feel very different when you come out. Something will just catch you. something will just make you feel different you'll be transfixed for 10 seconds staring at something getting lost in it and it takes you somewhere it's like walking through nature it's like watching the river flow art is one of the purely purely amazing good things that humankind makes and does and creates for no reason at all but for art itself for its own sake and if you can just pick up on a tiny bit of that it makes you feel really really good makes you feel good inside do you still have moments when you go and look at art I mean you're quite famous I imagine if you're walking around an art gallery you might get stopped but when you get to have those moments in front of a piece or not do you still find you can be very moved this this is the best thing that happens to me for art okay I can decide for whatever reason that I don't really respond to someone's work I never got it I never understood it right I think I just don't get their work I just don't understand it and then I'll go I'll go to their exhibition or I just see one of their works in a group show or in a bit in a museum show or something and it stops me in my tracks and I look at this work and I think wow wow I never saw it like that before I never thought about it like that and I see this work and all this art in a really different way in a different context and I suddenly enjoy it and I suddenly start to respond to it and I'm suddenly open to it and then all my mind opens up it's almost like birds are singing and there's hearts flowing and you know it's like this really you know fantastic music rising and and I suddenly feel really free because something that trapped my brain before has become open and I feel better for that.

17:44So I'm never cynical about art. I'm always responsive. I'm more than happy to change my mind about something. It's like being released. It's fantastic. A really silly question, if you'll indulge me. I like silly questions. Your bed, not your bad bed, the bed, which will be on as part of this exhibition. does all the detritus and everything just get stored as it is is this is that a really stupid question no it's not i didn't i didn't we installed it last week it's really really protected but the bed can only be shown about every five years and only for a certain amount of time because the fragility of everything you know you don't want all the sheets going getting bleached out you don't want it's all got to stay anyway and we have to wear those hazmat suits when we're putting and when we're about to install it the other day and it was hot it must also be strange because you made it and you used to touch it yes but i'm in the tate and the tate are responsible for its identity and it's protected and insured so even though it's my bed i don't own no i only look The idea and everything, but it's not literally my possession anymore.

19:03And so it has to be protected and insured and everything. So it's just respectful, you know. So did you put the suit on? Yeah, of course I did, yeah. No, of course. I was really, really hot. So I got to go and take my clothes off and put the suit on and then put the gloves on and everything. And I got really sad. I was really sad. I was going, it's sad. And why is it sad this time? I don't understand why it's sad. last time I'd installed it I was well I was fit I hadn't gone through all of what I've gone through and emotionally it would have pulled something through me as I was reinstalling it memory sense of memory time all of these things the value of something does this relate does this matter who is this person am I that person is any part of me left still remaining in that bed my spirit my soul where is the energy from the person who created that the person who survived this bed have they gone and come back again all of these questions or whatever and that's what I was thinking as I was doing it and it was really really sad I feel like crying now it was really strange I would have liked it to have been a bit more rumpy pumpy this one but it's not at all it's It's like that's where someone nearly died.

20:22And I suppose that's part of the problem with it because I think also when you've been really nihilistic in your life, when you've been younger and then you feel sort of for want a better, yeah, a second life, you've been given a second chance, maybe I felt remorseful as well about the indulgence of how I lived and what I did and how I... But everyone, you know, like... Alcoholics don't want to be alcoholics. You know, drug abusers don't want to be drug addicts. It goes on and on and on. People don't choose to be that way. They became that way. And it's really hard to put the brakes on and say, right, now it's going to stop.

21:13And now I'm going to treat my life differently. Now I'm going to have more respect for me. Now I'm going to clean this up, do that. Now I'm going to survive. Now I'm going to go forward. People say to me, what would you say to your younger self or those kind of questions? And I said, the main thing I'd say is that everything's going to be all right. Because if you know it's going to be all right, if you just knew, you'd have the power and the strength to feel that you can continue. But lots of people aren't given that confidence. They're not given that power. when people ask me about my stuff when I was younger and how I felt when I was a child and everything before I never made reference to enough I don't think was living in poverty being a child and being poor and living in poverty affects you for the rest of your life however you deal with it what's it done to you do you think I think with me I think my mum My mum, about 20 years ago, my mum said that I was going up my own backside.

22:18And I think she was right in a way. I think there was a certain point in my life where I tried to run away from everything. Everything that made me, even though I was really open about it, I think I wished it hadn't been like that. I wished everything had been better. I wished everything had been clearer and cleaner. I've never been an A-level student. I never did any A-levels. No one helped me with my homework. No one read stories to me. You know, the list is endless because this is what happens when you grow up in poverty or poor background. The person looking after you, in my case, single parent mum, does not have time when she's finished work to come and read you a story.

23:06Another big thing, you don't have a washing machine. The washing's done in the bath. your socks are grey your shirt is grey things shrink you're going to be the person at school that's like slightly scuzzy being on that other side has a bad effect on you it does and with me luckily again I am very lucky I had art I had art and I had creativity and that just pulled me through pulled me through pulled me through I think also the fact that you've just been so moved and it makes so much sense and thank you for explaining it about the bed this time about what it's brought up and everything but also feeling so rubbish earlier in your life and yet you've gone through what you've been through with cancer and now you've got an exhibition called a second life it seems like coming that close to death you seem to have learned a great deal from that experience and taken a great deal from that yeah it's really funny it's sort of like a fossey impact like if someone had said to me six years ago or seven years ago well tracy you're going to lose your bladder you're going to lose this you're going to lose that you're going to have a sort of hidden disability blah blah blah but you're going to go back to margate you're going to be really happy it's going to be like shangla it's going to be like heaven you're going to paint in the morning and swim in the sea in the sunset in the afternoon would I have exchanged my bladder?

24:36I don't know. I doubt it. But the point is I got a pretty good return. It was amazing because when I was told that I was going to be dead by Christmas I thought, oh dear. And I said death looks after itself and what I'm going to do now is just focus on living which I'd never done before in my life ever, ever.

25:04Thank you for listening to The Interview. If you enjoyed this conversation, you can find many more episodes of The Interview wherever you get your BBC podcasts, including ones with the former Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, and Dame Sarah Mullally, the first woman to be the Archbishop of Canterbury. Until the next time, bye for now.

25:34It's 2009 and we're in the German mountains. A man straps himself into a car on the world's most dangerous racetrack. He whispers to himself, It's time to put my balls on the dashboard. As he starts the engine. In 15 minutes, he's in an ambulance, unconscious. In 15 years, he's a billionaire. This is Toto Wolff, Formula One's most powerful team boss and the breakout star of Drive to Survive. This week on Good, Bad, Billionaire, how Toto Wolff made his billions. Listen wherever you get your BBC podcasts.