‘trust yourself’, 2012
image © the artist
courtesy lehmann maupin and white cube

 

 

 

tracey emin: angel without you
museum of contemporary art north miami
december 4th, 2013 through march 9, 2014

 

 

the museum of contemporary art, north miami kicks off art basel miami beach 2013 with the opening of ‘tracey emin: angel without you,’ the first american exhibition dedicated to the renowned british artist. comprising more than 60 works from the past two decades, the show spotlights emin’s creative vocation to visualizing the often brutal honesty of her most intimate endeavors. over the course of her career, she has revealed through film, drawing, painting, and installation, a breadth of complex and visceral emotions, materializing her insecurities, imperfections, and humiliations as individual embodiments of art. MOCA’s exhibit centers around emin’s written works in neon, a critical aspect of her practice that exemplifies her expert capacity to poetize her thoughts. 

 

 

tracey emin lights up MOCA miami for angel without you
tracey emin
‘never again!’, 2012
image © the artist
courtesy lehmann maupin and white cube

 

 

handblown neon glass signs of phrases, words, and short ideas survey the museums walls, journeying the audience into emin’s vast and mosaic mind. the solo show curated by bonnie clearwater seamlessly suits the vibrant urban expanse it inhabits, as clearwater explains the medium is ‘appropriate to the neon-rich cityscape of south florida’. as highly chromatic, flashy visuals penned in scripted text, the audience might theorize a cheerful and encouraging context for them, yet their actual undertone is far more emotionally embedded. her reactions to depression and distress are never more evident than in neons like ‘you loved me like a distant star’ and ‘its not me thats crying its my soul’.

 

 

tracey emin lights up MOCA miami for angel without you
tracey emin
‘angel without you’, 2012
© the artist
courtesy white cube, london and lehmann maupin, new york, hong kong

 

 

tracey emin lights up MOCA miami for angel without you
tracey emin
‘sorry flowers die’, 1999
59.06 x 59.06 inches
courtesy white cube, london and lehmann maupin new york, hong kong

 

 

tracey emin lights up MOCA miami for angel without you
tracey emin
‘meet me in heaven I will wait for you’, 2004
image © the artist
courtesy lehmann maupin and white cube

 

 

tracey emin lights up MOCA miami for angel without you
tracey emin
‘only god knows I’m good’, 2009
20 x 117.21 inches
courtesy the artist and white cube, london and lehmann maupin, new york, hong kong
image © the artist

 

tracey emin lights up MOCA miami for angel without you
tracey emin
‘love happens like lightning’, 2005
image © the artist
courtesy lehmann maupin and white cube

 

 

tracey emin
was born in london in 1963, and studied at maidstone college of art and the royal college of art, london.
she has exhibited extensively internationally including solo and group exhibitions in holland, germany, japan, australia and america.
in 2007, emin represented britain at the 52nd venice biennale, was made a royal academician and was awarded an honorary doctorate from the royal college of art, london, and a doctor of letters from the university of kent and doctor of philosophy from london metropolitan university.