Message of love to Liverpool from Tracey Emin
Culture Reporter Catherine Jones talks to artist Tracey Emin about Biennials and birdsTRACEY Emin is having a senior moment. The incorrigible, vulnerable, often controversial but never less than entertaining renaissance woman of British art has just spotted her latest installation – part of the Independents Biennial – glowing above the west door of Liverpool Cathedral.
“Wow,” she says, “it looks incredible, amazing – particularly with the blue window behind it. “I was just walking forward, and for a split second I forgot why I was here.
Visitors to the cathedral have also been reacting to the Emin artwork since it went up last week, a 20ft pink neon sign in her own handwriting which reads simply: “I felt you and I knew you loved me.”
Some assume the message is “salacious” because it comes from Emin.
Others read it as an affirmation of their faith.
Cathedral director of hospitality Eryl Parry says: “We had a group of Christian Texans here last week who absolutely loved it. They thought it was a wonderful statement of their mission.”
Liverpool Cathedral may be unlikely surroundings for an artist who has notoriously presented the world with a condom-littered unmade bed, a tent stitched with the names of everyone she has ever slept with – later destroyed in a fire – and other sexually-provocative fayre.
But for Emin, who lives opposite Christchurch in Spitalfields, the church is a place for contemplation and her message is one of love.
“I thought it would be nice for people to sit in the cathedral and have a moment to contemplate the feelings of love,” she says. “It’s something which we just don't have enough time to think about.
“All my neons are very open-ended. Unlike a lot of my artwork where I force it on you, it’s up to you how you interpret this. It depends how you want to be touched by something.
“I’m quite a spiritual person and I believe in the feeling. There’s nothing cynical about it, it’s just one of my thoughts.”
Liverpool has become something of an artistic second home for the 45-year-old in recent years.
In 2005 she was commissioned by the Beeb to create the Roman Standard – irreverently nicknamed the “budgie on the stick” by Liverpudlians – which stands before the Oratory in the grounds of St James’s churchyard.
The tiny bronze bird has attracted attention, but not necessarily for the right reasons, having been stolen twice in the last few months.
It was back in place today after a Good Samaritan drove through the night from London to re-fix it on its perch – but its creator is not happy.
“I’m not upset, I’m angry,” she says. “It’s really stupid of these people who keep taking it – what they’re doing is stealing from Liverpool, they’re stealing from themselves.
“It’s been up for three years, a happy little bird which landed in Liverpool and isn’t doing anyone any harm. It’s a symbol of the kind of city Liverpool is – it’s regenerated and it’s brilliant.
“But every time it’s taken it’s costing people money, resources and time. If it happens again we’ll have to think about what to do with it, whether it will have to be moved.”
It was through her work with the “little bird” that Emin first ventured into the vast space of Liverpool Cathedral, exploring its “nooks and crannies” and befriending arts enthusiast Canon Toby Forward, leading to this latest Biennial venture.
Emin was also a John Moores Prize judge two years ago, at the time pledging that she would enter the art competition during Capital of Culture year, whether she was in with a chance of winning or not.
Then, she told a packed Walker Art Gallery she would be back for this year’s Biennial, “supporting it 100%.”
And here she is doing just that – albeit with one last moment of forgetfulness.
“I forgot to enter something in the John Moores,” she admits candidly. “But if I hadn’t got in, I would have let you know.
“I might do it next time.”
http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news/2008/09/26/message-of-love-to-liverpool-from-tracey-emin-100252-21906904/
Tracy Emin Bird sculpture
BBC invented excuse to buy Emin sculpture
THE BBC was embarrassed last night by e-mails that showed it “invented” a justification for spending £60,000 of licence payers’ money commissioning a Tracey Emin sculpture.
Emin’s Roman Standard sculpture of a bird on a post was bought by the BBC at a time when Mark Thompson, its director-general, was announcing big cost cuts.
Internal e-mails revealed serious doubts within the organisation about spending so much on a sculpture that had no links to the corporation.
An e-mail dated February 22 from senior BBC publicist Janet Morrow to Vanda Rumney, head of communications, gave warning that the commission could create a “sticky situation on the public art front which could blow up”.
Morrow noted that the sculpture “is not connected to a BBC building, nor is it linked in any way to a BBC broadcast or BBC activity — the BBC has purely used licence fee money to create a public sculpture”.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article592317.ece
