Thread: Tracy Emin
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Unread 07-07-2014, 06:57 AM
ross hamilton hill ross hamilton hill is offline
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Emin's piece is not conceptual art, it is found art, as John remarked, in the tradition of Duchamp's urinal. Conceptual art comes from abstract or op art, it is about ideas, sensations and design. Emin's piece is about the human condition, it is detaied, representational and real. It is perhaps most closely associated with the kitchen sink tradition in theatre leading eventually to Becket and Pinter. In art maybe Soutine, even Van Gogh's chair and today Lucien Freud's warts and all paintings.
Conceptional art is perhaps most closely allied to Mondrian and then Bridget Riley but there is a fine line between abstract expressionism like Newman and Rothko which no matter how close it came to pure abstraction never crossed that line and dispensed with emotion. In some ways Emin is going back, reasserting the humanistic and confessional role of the artist like Van Gogh's or even Rembrandt's self-portraits and the tradition of intimate interiors ( like Matisse and Vermeer to name two). As I said she's become very established lately.
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