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Now although I don't 'like' the work of Tracey Emin and find much of the money surrounding this wave of British art quite vulgar, I don't think we should just write her off! The woman achieves pretty much what she has set out to do, and by the very nature of us discussing it here, she's doing it pretty well indeed.
I find it quite sad that these works have to be given such absurd price tags to give the artists credibility, but this phenomenon is just as representative of our time as the work itself. All of the Young British Artists were pretty much created by the Saatchi brothers, ploughing huge amounts of money into buying up work from Degree shows (mainly from Goldsmiths college). The act was pretty much a work of genius in itself; by placing such a high price on the work, it instantly gave it notoriety. To be fair a lot of this work was quite 'good', but the Saachis made it fashionable...let's face it if you're responsible for successful Conservative election campaigns, you can make people believe anything!
From this Emin got her 'fame' and produced much of the work Rick lists, which really serves no purpose other than to shock. Of course her works are engineered to shock and are only really appreciable in the context of a gallery, but what's the problem with this? Just because something has to exist in a certain context doesn't make it any less ephemeral, live musical performance being a good example.
Tracey Emin just has ideas, some of them successful, some not. The fact of the matter is that people say ignorant things like 'I could do that' but fail to recognise the simple fact 'they didn't'. The last 'bloke in the pub' I spoke to about this, although claiming 'he could do it'; didn't complete a foundation course in fine art, didn't get into Goldsmiths college, didn't complete a degree living on no money, didn't independently set up exhibitions to entice rich investors, didn't decide to vent childhood traumas (something I find quite crass in her work), and didn't get a nomination for the Turner prize, and didn't enter his unmade bed.
I personally find this branch of her work a bit boring now and remember going every year to see the Turner prize nominees because it was quite exciting. This time has passed, and now we see the influence of Damien Hirst's 'spot paintings' in the likes of Marks and Spencer's Canteens. Last month I went to see an exhibition of the history of British quilting at the V&A, compared to the Turner prize, a relatively conservative display. At the very end of the exhibition, that tracked the sociological legacy of quilting with amazing examples dating back 100s of years, was a Tracey Emin quilt. Emin speaks quite eloquently about the subject of quilting and how it fits into British tradition. I found it ironic that the piece had just as much interest as the older quilts, considering many there were Daily Mail reading-Women's Institute types, that would ordinarily display complete disgust for anything other than a watercolour of the local corn mill.
We have to be careful we don't become too 'WI' about our tastes. Just about every artistic movement has had people and critics claiming 'this is rubbish' 'I could do that' and 'this will never stand the test of time'. But now we accept much of this imagery as the norm. I'm sure you must be more aware of this than most Rick. (I have to be clear: I don't like Emin)
As for paintings by kids Howard, they're the best! Picasso spent most of his life trying to paint like a child.
