Sculpture
In February 2005 Emin's first public artwork, a bronze sculpture, went on display outside the Oratory, adjacent to Liverpool Cathedral. It consists of a small bird perched on a tall bronze pole, and is designed so that the bird seems to disappear when viewed from the front. It was commissioned by the BBC. "Emin's work stands outside The Oratory, in Upper Duke Street just outside the Cathedral. The Roman Standard - which features a small bird on top of a four-metre high bronze pole - is a tribute to the city's famous symbol the Liver Bird. The sculpture was commissioned by the BBC as part of their contribution to the art05 festival and Liverpool's year as European Capital of Culture in 2008. Emin says the sculpture represents strength and femininity." In September 2008 Emin unveiled a brand new neon work that will "be installed in the well of the cathedral" Emin herself says of her continuing relationship of making public sculptures in the town, "When Liverpool is Capital of Culture in 2008, I'll be making a large work for the Anglican Cathedral, which I'm really looking forward to."
Other sculptures have included Death Mask (2002) which is a bronze cast of her own head. Emin loaned this work to the National Portrait Gallery in 2005,
| “ | The death mask, which enjoyed a popular revival in the nineteenth century, was a method for preserving the final expression and physiognomy of the famous or infamous, largely based on the belief that facial features and proportion could explain personal attributes such as genius or criminality. These likenesses were often produced and distributed in multiples as plaster casts could be taken from a bronze original.
In an ironic reference to the much discussed autobiographical nature of her practice which has dominated critical reception of her work, Emin has cast her own death mask during her life-time creating a contemporary portrait with an historic allusion through her use of this lost tradition. Death Masks were most usually made of male subjects. The red appliqué fabric on which Emin's bronze head is placed refers to the frequent use of quilting and embroidery in her work, associated with the domestic sphere of women, which challenges masculine frameworks of history and art history. Emin, whose work is often based on images of herself, once commented "It is like they have seen my art by seeing me". In this work she offers herself in perpetuity as an enclosed specimen or museum display, literally transforming herself into an object for the scrutiny of generations to come. |
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At Emin's 2007 Venice Biennale exhibition, as well as the central exhibition's Tower sculptures, tall wooden towers consisting of small pieces of timber piled together, a new small bronze-cast sculpture work of a child's pink sock was revealed Sock (2007) on display on the steps of the British Pavilion. Her exhibition again attracted widespread UK media coverage, both positive and negative.
In September 2007 Emin announced she would be exhibiting new sculpture work in the inaugural Folkestone Triennial which took place in the Kent town from June until September 2008. In June 2008 Emin discussed the Folkestone sculptures, stating the "high percentage" of teenage pregnancies in the Kent town had inspired this latest work. Emin said her contribution would be different pieces placed around the town,
| “ | I'm going to be making very tiny bronze-cast items of baby clothing. It's baby clothes that I have found in the street, like a mitten or a sock. | ” |
Emin's 2007 solo show at Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles' Beverly Hills included brand new sculpture works described by Emin as, "some very strange little sculptures. They are nearly all of animals, apart from one, which is a pineapple. They rest on mini-plinths made in a really brilliant LA, beach, California, Fifties surfer kind of style. Different woods put together in cute pattern formations. In some places the wood is 18th-century floorboards, some bits of cabin from tall ships or things which could have been found on the seashore – driftwood." The New York Times included Emin in a piece about artists who are Originals with a new photograph with two sculptures, one of a small bird on a thin stand and a large seagull, both sculptures placed upon wooden plinths. Gagosian further described the many different sculptures from the show as, "a group of delicate wood and jesmonite sculptures, which expand on the spirals, rollercoasters, and bridges of recent years. Others incorporate cast bronze figures – seagulls, songbirds, and frogs — or objects combining cement and glass, which are placed on tables or bundled bases made from found timbers."
In late November 2007 it was announced that Emin was one of six artists to have been shortlisted to propose a sculpture for the fourth plinth in London's Trafalgar Square. The other shortlisted artists were Jeremy Deller, Antony Gormley, Anish Kapoor, Yinka Shonibare, and Bob and Roberta Smith - the professional name of Patrick Brill. The contenders were commissioned to produce a scale model of their idea. On 6 January 2008, it was revealed Emin's proposal was a lifesize model of a group of four meerkats, the desert mammal. Entitled Something for the Future it consists of a sculpture of four meerkats "as a symbol of unity and safety." as "whenever Britain is in crisis or, as a nation, is experiencing sadness and loss (for example, after Princess Diana's funeral), the next programme on television is 'Meerkats United.'" The successful proposals were announced in 2008 as Gormley, whose project One & Other occupied the plinth in summer 2009 and Shonibare, whose work Nelson's Ship in a Bottle was unveiled in 2010.
Read more about this topic: Tracey Emin, Work
Famous quotes containing the word sculpture:
“Writing is not like painting where you add. It is not what you put on the canvas that the reader sees. Writing is more like a sculpture where you remove, you eliminate in order to make the work visible. Even those pages you remove somehow remain.”
—Elie Wiesel (b. 1928)