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Tracey Emin was born in London in 1963 and grew up in Margate on the South East coast of England. She studied at Maidistone College of Art, 1986-1989 and then completed an MA at the Royal College of Art, London in 1992. Emin was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 1999 and has been selected to represent Britain at the 52ndVenice Biennale of Art, 2007. Emin lives and works in London.

Tracey Emin formed part of a generation of enterprising artists who wanted to reach their audience directly. In 1994 she held a collaborative ‘shop’ selling artworks with fellow arties Sarah Lucas in the East End of London. It was also a significant year as she travelled across the USA recording readings from her autobiography. “Exploration of the Soul”. This performance is recorded in a work entitled Monument Valley (Grand Scale) Arizonan desert valley, Emin performed a healing ritual through recounting painful personal memories as she travelled across the United States. The chair was then also subsequently sewn with the names of the places she visited, and is exhibited as an artwork entitled There’s A Lot of Money In Chairs (1994).

Tracey Emin works in range of different media, including drawing, film performance, photography, printmaking, installation and applique. Her work includes autobiographical text, often with idiosyncratic spelling mistakes, word reversals, of paradoxical statements. Her textile works are particularly characteristic: she takes a medium associated with female accomplishment but turns it on its head to explore sexually explicit statement “here to stay” is embroidered under the United States of America’s flag. This work can also be read as a political critique – it begs the viewer to ask the question: where are the Americans “here to stay”? Indeed here Emin is making a statement about American omnipresence perhaps though its global multinational implantation.

Emin’s works is provocative, not so much in its form, but in its subject matter. My Bed (1998), which formed the central feature of her Turner Prize exhibition at Tate Britain the following year, consisted in short of the artist’s unmade bed surrounded by personal items from her bedroom. Emin’s work is disarmingly autobiographical and emotionally expressive. Often her work expresses angst, it can be tragic, yet it can also be humorous as she uses her working materials as a psychological filter.

Tracey Emin deals with confrontational themes such as love. Sex, death. She describes personal hardship particular to young women today such as rape, abortion, drunkenness, sexual in intimidation and violence. Recently Emin has produced a film, entitled Top Spot (2004), which is loosely inspired be her real-life experiences. Set in her hometown Margate, the film discusses issues of concern to contemporary British teenagers. Emin continuously weaves fact and fiction, autobiography, personal loss and joy, meditation and confrontation in her bold body of work.

Emin’s work featured in important group shows such as “’Brilliant!’ New Art from London”, Minneapolis and Houston, 1995-6 and “Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection”, London, Berlin and New York, 1997-9. These exhibitions featured Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963-1995 (1995), a tent appliqued with the names of each person Emin had shared a bed with.

Major solo exhibitions include: Gesellschaft fur Aktulle Kunst Bremen, 1999; Stedelijk, Amsterdam, 2002; Haus der Kunst, Munchen, 2002; Modern Art Oxford, 2002; Platform Garanti Contemporary Arts Center, Istanbul, 2004.

Reading:

“Tracey Emin”. Texts be Neal Brown, Sarah Kent and Matthew Collings. Jay Jopling/White Cube, London, 1988

“Tracey Emin. The Art of Tracey Emin”. Essays by Chris Townsend et al. Thames & Hudson, 2002

“Tracey Emin”. Texts by Jeanette Winterson, Rudi Fuchs and Tracey Emin in conversation with Carl Freedman. Rizzoli, New York, 2006

Picture

<My Bed> 1999

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Jake and Dinos Chapman

Jake and Dinos Chapman, born respectively in Cheltenham, 1966 and London, 1962, have worked collaboratively since they graduated in 1990 with a Fine Art MA from the Royal college of Art, London. They live and work in London.

The Chapmans came to public attention in 1993 with The disasters of War exhibition. Using plastic model figurines, the brothers recreated a series of tableaux inspired by the eighteenth century artist Francisco Goya’s famous series of etchings of the Franco-Spanish Napoleonic wars. The fascination with the Spanish artist has continued with their Insult to Injury series included in their Turner Prize nomination exhibition in 2003 at Tate, London.

Jake and Dinos Chapman are fascinated by the vulgar, and their work explores the moral boundaries of horror and the abject. In 1996, their exhibition “Chapmanworld” caused controversy at the Institute of Contemporary arts, London as it featured works  entitled Tragic Anatomies, or grotesquely deformed mannequins of children.

Nonetheless, the brothers always bring a particular and often perverse humour to their exploration of heavy themes. Their exhibition “Works from the Chapman Family Collection” at White Cube gallery, London in 2002 included what appeared to be ancient sacred African and Oceanic sculptures, but which on closer inspection turned out to be ’counterfeits’. Indeed, the sculptures anachronistically bear the logos of global corporation such as McDonalds. Here the works are solemnly displayed, like relics, yet they are offered up by the artists as absurd anti-effigies to modern capitalism. The sculptures were complemented by a series of meticulously drafted large prints bearing the same name. Drawing III from the Chapman Family Collection (2002) shows a ‘Big Mac’ hamburger head offered up on a crucifix, as a tongue in cheek critique of the morals of Neo-Liberalism and Christian Democracy.

The Chapmans’ solo exhibition history also bears the traces of their restless burlesque humour. Exhibition titles include:”Dinos and Jake Chapman. GCSE Art Exam” at The Art Ginza Space, Tokyo, 2000; “Jackie and Denise Chapwoman. Now York”, Modern Art, London, 2001; “The Rape of Creativity”, Modern Art Oxford, 2003; “Explaining Christians to Dinosaurs”, Kunsthaus Bregenz, 2005; and “Like a dog returns to its vomit”, at White Cube, London 2005. A major retrospective of their work has been organised by Tate Liverpool for 2006-7.

Jake and Chapman’s work has been included in seminal group exhibitions such as ”Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi collection”, London, Berlin and Now York, 1997-9; as well as in “ ‘Brilliant!’ New Art from London”, Minneapolis and Houston, 1995-6.

It was in this exhibition that the public came to Stephen Hawking in his wheelchair is balanced dangerously on a cliff-edge, like the stag standing on a rocky outpost in Edwin Landseer’s Monarch of the Glenn (1851). Hawking is defamed, despite his ‘super-human’ intellect and elevation, his precarious positioning underpins his frail physicality. Regardless of the scientis’s no boundary in imaginary time, we are reminded of his mortality.

Their work has come to attention again in more tragic circumstances through the destruction of Hell in 2004, arguably their most monumental sculptural work to date, which had been exhibited at the Royal Academy of Art, London’s “Apocalypse” exhibition in 2000. Nonetheless, rather than being disheartened, the Chapmans continue to turn events and occurrences on their heads, and continue to offer new bodies of work which draw life on the peculiar legacy of others.

 Reading:

“Jake & Dinos Chapman. Works from the Chapman Family Collection.” Essay by Suhail Malik. Jay Jopling / White Cube, 2002

“Jake & Dinos Chapman”. Texts by Eckhard Schneider, Jake Chapman, James Hall and Rudolf Sagmeister. Kunsthaus Bregen, 2005

“Jake and Dinos Chapman”. Tate Publishing, London, 2006

Picture:

<They teach our children nothing> 2003 works, Etching, Hand colored etching

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The existence of contemporary art lies in raising a question rather than giving people an answer.

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We live in the "Hyper-Reality" of our own minds. It is very important to see the original appearance of anything in daily life, the artificially produced country, and the second-hand symbol information, which is becoming the main source of people's cognitive world.

——Jean Baudrillard 

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(2010) Opening in October 2010 at the Tate Museum in London, Ai weiwei displayed 100 million handmade and painted porcelain sunflower seeds. These seeds weighed about 150 tons and were made over a span of two and a half years by 1,600 Jingdezhenartisans. This city made porcelain for the government for over one thousand years. The artisans produced the sunflower seeds in the traditional method that the city is known for, in which a thirty step procedure is employed. The sculpture relates back to chairman Mao's rule and the Chinese Communist Party. The combination of all the seeds represents that together, the people of China can stand up and overthrow the Chinese Communist Party. Along with this, the seeds represent China's growing mass production stemming from the consumerist culture in the west. The sculpture directly challenges the "Made in China" mantra that China is known for, considering the labor-intensive and traditional method of creating the work.[1]

1. "About Ai Weiwei's Sunflower Seeds." Ai Weiwei. Faurschou Foundation, n.d. Web. 29 March 2017.

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Guoqiang Cai was born in 1957 in Quanzhou, Fujian Province, China. His father, Cai Ruiqin, was a calligrapher and traditional painter who worked in a bookstore. As a result, Cai Guo-Qiang was exposed early on to Western literature as well as traditional Chinese art forms.[1]

As an adolescent and teenager, Cai witnessed the social effects of the Cultural Revolution first-hand, personally participating in demonstrations and parades himself. He grew up in a setting where explosions were common, whether they were the result of cannon blasts or celebratory fireworks. He also "saw gunpowder used in both good ways and bad, in destruction and reconstruction". [1] It seems that Cai has channeled his experiences and memories through his numerous gunpowder drawings and explosion events.

Friis-Hansen, Zaya, Serizawa, Dana, Octavio, Takashi (2002). Cai Guo-Qiang.|access-date= requires |url= (help)

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City of flower in the sky - Guoqiang Cai

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Reflection

   Through the Jasmir Creeds' exhibition, I can see she observed the corners of each city and tried to connect her inner world with the urban streetscape. The architectural forms dynamically swoop and swirl across the image. And she mentioned the term “woman wanderers” which guide me imagining one of my favorite French artist Louise Bourgeois. She complex and diverse's artistic style and creation embodied her emphasis on the power of women.

   During the Louise Bourgeois’ exhibition, I found that spiders, silks, and spirals were used repeatedly. And some recurring shapes—the spherical female silhouette, the mother's image, the twisted spider, the isolated characters—are all the personal sign of Louise Bourgeois.

Her childhood experiences, and love-hate for her father are reflected in her works.She changed her view on body and family constantly. And express herself with materials and feminine forms.

   “Art can be repaired: the idea is to mend the damage caused by the burden in our lives, to combine some of the fragments of life, things that make people feel anxious and fearful and to complete them.” The passage of Bourgeois and Hauser Arnold emphasize that creating an aesthetic image in art is not the sole purpose of the artist. "Great art gives us an explanation of life, which enables us to treat the chaotic state of food more successfully, better. The harmony with life, this is a more convincing and more trustworthy meaning with art. The artistic sociological explanation with Hauser is: "Explain the way a piece of art expresses its view of life according to the actual source of art." She implies the theme of her life, and she uses different materials, styles, forms, and repeated explorations to perform So was the face is rich and varied. It was not until the rise of the feminist art movement in the 1970s that artists and writers began to pay attention to feminine art. Bourgeois was re-discovered and began to enter the mainstream of art. Show her life bravely to the world, and bring us social thinking in the change of destiny. She uses all available materials to create and try all the art forms, which express women's vision of the world and convey a strong feminine atmosphere.

    Because the mention of contemporary art, many people's expressions are incomprehensible. It was difficult to understand what the artist thinking. Some people even think things that are messy and incomprehensible are art.

     In my opinion, the reason people supposed in this way is relevant to the contemporary society. I think that interpreting a work is closely related to the current cultural background. For example, some wartime photography works have clear themes. People can intuitively see the pains of people at that time. But today's society is stable, there are no big social problems, people live in peace, so people begin to explore more inner world. This expression of works is very subjective. Some people think that it is difficult to understand contemporary art works.

    Therefore, this is the most unique place in Bourgeois: other artists' works let you appreciate, comprehend, and try to understand it; but for Bourgeois works, you don't need to understand it deliberately or feeling, the work itself is wrapped indulgence and cure, soft, warm, and have a beautiful texture.  When I saw this work, I felt like the work knew you.

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这些反复出现的形状——球形的女性轮廓、突出的阴茎、母亲形象、扭曲的蜘蛛、孤立的人物和暂时的情侣——都是布尔乔亚个人标志。

That recurring shapes—the spherical female silhouette, the prominent penis, the mother's image, the twisted spider, the isolated characters, and the couple—are all the personal sign of Louise Bourgeois.

在她早期的绘画中，线索经常象征着头发和时间的束缚。她悬挂的雕塑存在于一种永久的矛盾和怀疑状态：安全而又脆弱，固定但容易转弯和变化，它们被悬挂在一个点上并且完全悬挂在一个线索上。

In her early drawings, the thread often symbolizes hair and the skein of time. Her hanging sculptures exist in a permanent state of ambivalence and doubt: secure yet vulnerable, fixed yet susceptible to turn and change, they are suspended from a single point and literally hang by a thread.

她标志性的蜘蛛雕塑是她母亲的代表，她在法国的工作室负责编织和修复。因此，永恒的线索也代表将母亲和孩子联系在一起的脐带。蜘蛛创造了它的网络，这是一个活生生的建筑，出自自己的身体，正如布尔乔亚从她自己的身体中创造出她的雕塑形式。

Her iconic spider sculptures are representations of her mother, who was in charge of weaving and restoration at the workshop in France. Thus the eternal thread also stands for the umbilical cord that binds mother and child together. The spider creates its web, which is a living architecture, out of its own body, just as Bourgeois made her sculptural forms out of her own body.

在经典的“细胞”与“蜘蛛”系列以外，布尔乔亚一直在不懈地坚持纸上绘画，从白天到黑夜，也一直未抛弃版画。艺术对于这位艺术家而言，就像是驱除心魔的工具。

Beyond the classic "Cell" and "Spider" series, Bourgeois has been relentlessly insisting on paper painting, from day to night, has not abandoned the engraving. For the artist, art is like a tool to get rid of the demons.

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07-Feb-19

Victoria Gallery & Museum.

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25-12-18 

路易斯·布尔乔亚  永恒的丝线

上海龙美术馆

25-Nov-18

Louis Bourgeois Eternal Silk

Shanghai Dragon Art Museum