Palazzo Strozzi hosts Sex and Solitude by Tracey Emin from March 16 until July 20, an exhibition featuring works by the contemporary British artist known for her direct and raw approach.
Often autobiographical and confessional in tone, over 60 works are on display, varying from paintings, drawings, film, photography, embroidery, appliqué, sculptures and neon installations, underpinned by themes like sexuality, illness, loneliness and love. Sometimes explicit and always searingly honest, the works respond to personal experiences with intimate and vulnerable works in which the artist’s anguish and melancholy are deeply affecting.
Curated by Arturo Galansino, Director General of the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, the pieces date from the 1990s to the present, with many of the works presented in Italy for the first time, including ‘I Followed You to the End’ (2024), a large-scale bronze sculpture of a female figure installed in the Palazzo’s Renaissance courtyard, together with new artworks created specifically for the exhibition.
A vivid-blue neon sign on the facade of Palazzo Strozzi welcomes visitors with the powerful visual declaration that gives the exhibition its title, Sex and Solitude (2025). In one of the rooms, the temporary studio where the artist lived and worked for three and a half weeks in front of the public is reconstructed, while other rooms feature visceral works that explore desire, suffering, love and loss.
Influenced by Edvard Munch and Egon Schiele, this is Emen’s first institutional solo show in Italy, having grown up in the seaside town of Margate, England, and drawing heavily on her own life to inform her work, referencing intimate experiences from her sexual history, abuse, abortion, cancer and disability.
Ahead of the showcase, The Florentine met with Florence-based art collector Christian Levett to talk through the work he owns by the artist, including one of her unique appliquéd blankets formed from fabric she has collected from curtains, bed sheets and linen that hold emotional significance.
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