One shouldn’t let this exhibition spoil one’s mood, said a critic of “Time Out London”. But honestly, in this time full of lockdowns and strict isolation regulations, any art can actually comfort rather than disturb. And so it is with this confrontation of Tracey Emin’s desperate self-portrayals with Edvard Munch’s chronicles of female emotionality, which at the end of the year were accessible to the public for a brief, precious moment between the lockdowns in London.
The British artist and the Norwegian late romantic (1863–1944) were born exactly 100 years apart, but their souls, so the tenor of the Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, have gone through the same hells. The title “The Loneliness of the Soul” alludes to it. The exhibition combines figurative painting, watercolors and gouaches by both artists and shows in direct comparison: The gesture and the expressive painting style are comparable and their themes are the same.
Devastating conditions of loneliness
Tracey Emin, celebrated exponent of the “Young British Artists” in the 1990s, turned from conceptual art to painting and learned this from the ground up. It shows a woman’s body that seems to be in dissolution, naked, lonely, consumed by pain; heavy and tired, the face mostly covered. Dripping paint flows from the body like blood. The palette is emotionally charged with red in all shades, deep black and blue in the contours. With titles like “Devoured by You”, the artist makes no secret of the fact that it is her own devastating states of loneliness, loss of love, pain and isolation that she has captured so impressively. On the other hand, Edvard Munch: His view of the woman’s body is that of the observer, who shows the expressed feelings of sadness and psychological loneliness in speaking body positions.
Frozen to stone appears a young woman in the picture “Death of Marat”. She stands motionless next to a bed on which a man is lying – dead, his hand falls red from the blood of the cut wrists towards the floor. The woman’s gaze leads straight out of the picture; Inwardly distant and emotionless, she stopped believing in that love long before it ended. At Munch, too, red is the color of strong emotions. The color and a few brush strokes are enough to depict a psychological disaster of immeasurable consequences.
Vulnerable and sensitive
It was Emin’s impulse to bring Munch’s works together with her own, and it was she who made this selection from hundreds of works for the Royal Academy. Emin has concentrated on the portraits of women with the aspects of vulnerability and isolation and has deliberately left out other central themes.
In an interview for the booklet accompanying the exhibition, she explained why she chose this one: “His approach to the subject is very sensitive, not violent. He was able to understand the situation, while I don’t accept my situation. I’m angry and still struggling always with it, and it’s the painting process that helps me manage and understand it. ” The exhibition is perhaps too one-dimensional by concentrating on this one topic, but it is a stirring homage by an artist to a soul mate.
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