Tracey Emin's major exhibition at Palazzo Strozzi
In Florence from March 16 to July 20, the exhibition project tracing the most important stages of the British artist's career
From March 16 to July 20, Palazzo Strozzi presents Tracey Emin. Sex and Solitude, the largest exhibition ever held in Italy dedicated to one of the most famous and influential artists on the contemporary scene.
Tracey Emin, I waited so Long (©Tracey Emin - ph. HV-Studio courtesy of the Artist and Xavier Hufkens)The exhibition at Palazzo Strozzi investigates Emin's multifaceted artistic practice through a journey that explores different moments in the artist's career, from the 1990s to the present, in an intense personal and collective journey on the themes of the body and desire. The title refers to two key words, sex and loneliness, which permeate the more than 60 works many of which are presented in Italy for the first time, such as the monumental bronze sculpture I Followed You To The End (2024), exhibited in dialogue with the Renaissance space of the Palazzo Strozzi courtyard, or the historic installation Exorcism of the Last Painting I Ever Made (1996), reconstructed in one of the rooms of the Piano Nobile. Also a key part of the itinerary are new productions, in different media, specifically created for the exhibition.
Tracey Emin is celebrated for the direct and raw approach with which she translates personal experiences into deeply intimate, intense and powerful works. She never depicts specific events, but captures emotions such as sexual passion and melancholy, which are made explicit in an artistic universe of different sizes, shapes and media, in which desire and love are intertwined with pain and sacrifice.
Tracey Emin. Sex and Solitude (©photo Ela Bialkowska OKNO studio)The exhibition celebrates Tracey Emin's intense artistic research, in which figuration and abstraction come together through energetic painterly gestures and bold colors, as in the paintings It - didn't stop - I didn't stop (2019) and There was blood (2022), which evoke bodily fragments and images of strong emotional and sexual charge. Sculpture, as in All I want is you (2016), also translates this expressiveness into three-dimensional volumes that enhance the vulnerability and strength of the human body. Her textual works, from neon to tapestries, use direct and intimate language to viscerally engage the audience, as in the installation Those who Suffer LOVE (2009).
(©photo Ela Bialkowska OKNO studio)Emin's art is deeply autobiographical, interweaving private moments with existential reflections on themes such as sexuality, illness and loneliness. His approach to figuration is part of a dialogue with masters such as Munch and Schiele, placing himself in contrast and continuity with the Renaissance tradition embodied in the architecture of Palazzo Strozzi.
The exhibition itinerary of the Tracey Emin exhibition at Palazzo Strozzi
Tracey Emin's exhibition Sex and Solitude brings together more than sixty works from international public and private collections, displayed between the Piano Nobile and the public spaces of Palazzo Strozzi. Through a thematic journey, the exhibition traces different moments in the artist's career through multiple media, including painting, sculpture, installation, and video, using heterogeneous materials such as bronze, neon, and embroidery.
The site-specific work Sex and Solitude (2025), a large blue neon on the facade of the building, introduces the central themes of Emin's research: the body, sexuality, loneliness and vulnerability. The sculpture I Followed You To The End (2024), exhibited in the courtyard, expresses this tension between monumentality and intimacy, while the installation Exorcism of the last painting I ever made (1996), presented for the first time in Italy, documents a historic performance in which the artist lived and worked nude for three weeks, reversing the role of women in art from muse to protagonist.
Tracey Emin I Followed You To The End (©photo Ela Bialkowska OKNO studio)
Tracey Emin Exorcism of the last painting I ever made (0©photo Ela Bialkowska OKNO studio)Painting is a centerpiece of the exhibition, with works that blend figuration and abstraction through intense gestures and vibrant brushstrokes, such as Hurt Heart (2015) and Not Fuckable (2024). Love, explored between desire and suffering, emerges in embroideries and bronze sculptures, while language plays a key role in titles and textual works. Famous are his neons, such as Love Poem for CF (2007) and Those who Suffer LOVE (2009), which transform his intimate confessions into powerful visual and emotional statements.
Tracey Emin, Hurt Heart (Foto © White Cube, George Darrell)Biography of Tracey Emin
Born in 1963 in Croydon, London, she grew up in the coastal town of Margate. Over the course of her career, she has developed an artistic practice that spans drawing, painting, tapestry, embroidery, film, bronze sculpture and neon installations. The artist draws inspiration from her own life, referencing deeply intimate experiences: from her sexual history to the abuse she suffered, from abortion to emotional relationships, and, most recently, cancer and her health challenges.
In 1999 she attracted enormous media attention when she was nominated for the Turner Prize and exhibited My Bed at the Tate Gallery in London. The work, created the previous year during a period of severe emotional instability, shows the artist's unmade bed surrounded by personal items and other remains, such as condoms, blood-stained underwear, empty alcohol bottles and cigarette butts.
Since then, Emin's career has grown steadily: in 2007 she represented the United Kingdom at the 52. Venice Biennale and in 2011 she was appointed Professor of Drawing at the Royal Academy, becoming one of the first two women to hold this position in the institution's history.