Following her success representing Great Britain at the 52nd International Venice Biennale in 2007 and her traveling retrospective, Tracey Emin 20 Years, Lehmann Maupin Gallery is proud to present the artist's fourth New York exhibition, Only God Knows I'm Good. This show features a new body of work that explores the artist's recurring themes of love, sex, and lust. On view through 19 December, the exhibition comprises 53 works including a large-scale film projection, never-before-seen neons and sculptures, and a collection of embroideries and monoprints.
Tracey Emin is well known for creating works in a wide variety of media—film, painting, neon, embroidery, drawing, installation and sculpture—that are intensely personal and revealing. Emin says of the exhibition, "This show for me is about drawing, about the line. To quote Rudi Fuchs, esteemed Dutch art historian, my 'salty line'. Through my embroideries, the line I draw is accentuated and extreme, which complements the way that I think. I'm on a constant search for clarity. The title of the show, 'Only God Knows I am Good' references David Bowie lyrics: 'God knows I'm good, God knows I'm good, surely God will look the other way today.' Life is complicated sometimes."
Published this year by Rizzoli, a new monograph titled "Tracey Emin: One Thousand Drawings" will be available for purchase. Compiled in close collaboration with the artist, the book represents a comprehensive collection of Emin's works on paper - an important part of her process.
The exhibition follows the introduction of a project entitled NEON LIFE: A Portrait, which was presented this year at The Frieze Art Fair. Emin, known for her confessional art, will engage the collector by asking them a series of intimate questions. In response, she will create a drawing, which will then be produced as a unique neon for the collector. This marks the first time Emin has offered such commissions.
Also of note, on Saturday, 7 November Emin will participate in the acclaimed Performa Biennial by reading from her new book of poems "Those Who Suffer Love" and from her 2008 autobiography "Strangeland." The reading will be followed by a Q + A moderated by RoseLee Goldberg. Visit www.performa-arts.org for details.
Tracey Emin lives and works in London. After her exhibition Every Part of Me's Bleeding in 1999 at Lehmann Maupin Gallery, she was short-listed for the Turner Prize at the Tate in London. In addition to a retrospective of her work at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in 2002, other solo exhibitions have been held at the Haus der Kunst, Munich; Museum of Modern Art, Oxford; and The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. In 2007, Emin's work appeared in Global Feminisms, Elizabeth A Sackler Center for Feminist Art, Brooklyn Museum. In 2008 Emin held her first major retrospective at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, which subsequently toured to the Centro de Arte Contempoáneo de Málaga in Spain and the Kunstmuseum Bern in Switzerland 2009. Her work is a part of numerous public and private collections including the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and the Hamburger Kunsthalle in Hamburg, among others. Tate Britain recently opened a room in their collection devoted entirely to Emin's work. 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, a Doctor of Letters from the University of Kent and Doctor of Philosophy from London Metropolitan University. In 2010, the Hayward Gallery in London will present the artist's first retrospective in England. Emin's work is currently on view through January 2010 in the exhibition, Pop Life: Art in a Material World, Tate Modern, London.
For more information, please contact Bethanie Brady at 212 255 2923 or Bethanie@LehmannMaupin.com, or visit www.LehmannMaupin.com.
