One of the recent exhibition I visited was Tracey Emin’s collaboration with the late Louise Bourgeois at the RWA, Bristol. This exhibition (finished october 23rd) was entitled: ‘Do not abandon me’ and featured block colour paintings by Bourgeois that Emin has later added her famous doodles to. The original prints aimed to depict elegant silhouettes, however the unfinished works are just of the torso of the figures which then left Emin a somewhat abstract canvas to work with.
Emin’s sketched females can be seen to lying provocatively on the fleshy mass, paying (ehem) ‘admiration’ to the male phallus and contrasting images that contain angry text rejecting the male form altogether. We all know how much Emin enjoys bringing past experiences to her work…
The works explore themes of male and female relationships, female sexuality and even childbirth and abortion. I found the exhibition a little exaggerated and maybe self indulgent on Emin’s part also, however the works did encompass the themes imagined by Bourgeois and I felt they were aesthetically interesting and although small the exhibition felt whole and complete.
