The key points
- Loneliness, vulnerability and fragility of emotions
A duet between artists and a dialogue between soul mates: the exhibition “Tracey Emin / Edvard Munch: The solitude of the soul” at the Royal Academy in London is this and much more. It is also a declaration of love from a distance that the British artist, born in 1963, makes to the Norwegian artist, born in 1863, exactly a century earlier.
When she was still a young girl, Emin had discovered Munch’s work in a book on Expressionism. It had been a revelation, a real love at first sight that had shown her the way forward, that of art, giving her an inspiration that has always accompanied her ever since. “I had found a friend,” he explained.
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Oslo
The idea of the joint exhibition came to Emin during a visit to the Munch archive in Oslo, when she felt in absolute harmony with him surrounded by the objects, clothes, writings and brushes of her artistic idol. Having obtained carte blanche from the museum, the British artist chose Munch’s most significant paintings and watercolors for her, combining them with her works. Her choice, said Emin, focused on the themes of “loneliness, vulnerability and the fragility of emotions”.
Munch’s goal was to create works of art “from the bottom of the heart”. Few contemporary artists have revealed their personal traumas like Emin, who became famous with “My bed” in 1998, her unmade bed symbol of her unruly life. For both life and art have been one. Each work can be traced back to an event, a pain, a lived moment. The two artists share the same emotional intensity, but Emin is like Munch to the nth degree and emphasizes even more the personal character of her art. Her large paintings, with eloquent titles such as “Devoured by you”, “You were the ground beneath my feet” or “Every part of me still loved you”, are all naked self-portraits.
Pain and color
Pain and color unite Emin and Munch, especially the red of blood, passion and anger, of a pain so intense that it becomes physical. In each work she uses red on faces, elbows, knees and pubis, while the painting “You made me feel this way” is entirely red. In a painting by Munch, a naked man places his hand on the knee of a naked woman who is crying, pressing her carmine-red hands to her eyes, indicating her despair. The title of the work is “Consolation”, but it is evident that man cannot console her, because love is over. Red expresses the ability of love to transform itself from joy into absolute despair. Even moments of passion are devoid of joy for the certainty that there will be abandonment and love will end, overwhelming everything.