Tracey Emin: A Second Life is a visceral, powerful, poignant, disturbing, unforgettable rollercoaster ride that takes you into the heart of Tracey Emin’s psyche. Charting a prolific four-decade career starting when she began to gain notoriety as a YBA and part of the naughty nineties crowd of rabble-rousing artists. Emin became a household name after her notorious 1998 artwork My Bed centred around the detritus of her bed, which saw her nominated for the Turner Prize and catapulted her into a media circus that culminated with an explosive appearance on live TV. Four decades later and she has been made a Dame of the British Empire, survived cancer and invasive life-saving surgery, embraced sobriety and embarked upon a second life that centres around her passion for rejuvenating her home town of Margate and creating an unlikely artworld hub with her T.E.A.R artist residency and studios.
This second chance at life which arose after her near-death experience and recovery, led to the name of her Tate Modern retrospective, which really is a life-affirming experience. She is far more than Tracey from Margate or the artist who made art from the mess surrounding her bed, she has created an exhibition that examines important and often disturbing topics of child abuse, racism, misogyny and illness. Absorbing traumatic life experienes and channellingl them into art.
Tracey Emin: A Second Life charts over four decades of one of Britain’s most influential contemporary artists. Bringing together career-defining works alongside pieces never exhibited before, the show offers an expansive and deeply personal insight into Emin’s groundbreaking practice.
Spanning painting, video, textiles, neons, writing, sculpture, and large-scale installation, A Second Life reveals how Tracey Emin has continuously challenged artistic and social boundaries. Central to the exhibition is her use of the female body as a powerful vehicle for exploring themes of passion, vulnerability, pain, resilience, and healing.
Dame Tracey Emin rose to international prominence in the 1990s, becoming one of the defining figures of her generation. Her Turner Prize–nominated work My Bed (1998) ignited fierce debate, radically questioning what art could be and who it was for. Emin’s refusal to separate the personal from the public—combined with her unapologetically confessional voice—came to define a pivotal moment in British culture and global contemporary art.
Tracey Emin: A Second Life broadens the narrative of her career, celebrating an artistic practice rooted in autobiography, emotional honesty, and lived experience. The exhibition poses profound questions about love, trauma, memory, and survival, while highlighting Emin’s lifelong dedication to painting. Her recent works, shown here as a powerful culmination, demonstrate how she continues to channel her life directly into her art with renewed intensity and clarity.
Charting Emin’s lifelong commitment to painting, the show begins by presenting works from her first solo exhibition at White Cube, My Major Retrospective 1982-93, comprising a series of tiny photographs of her art school paintings from the 1980s which she destroyed following a difficult period of her life. These are shown alongside Tracey Emin CV 1995, a self-portrait and first-person narration of her life up until that moment and the poignant video work Why I Never Became A Dancer 1995, in which the artist recounts traumatic events from her teenage years in Margate. Together, these early works introduce visitors to Emin’s instantly recognisable first-person voice and intimate storytelling.
Emin’s deep-rooted connection to her hometown of Margate has been a constant thread throughout her practice. Leaving Margate aged 15, Emin returned intermittently during her late teens and early 20s before moving to London in 1987 to study at the Royal College of Art. After witnessing her mother’s passing in Margate in 2016 and surviving cancer in 2020, Emin returned to the seaside town, making it her permanent home and establishing the Tracey Emin Artist Residency, a free studio-based art school. Tate Modern is showcasing works from Emin’s life centred around Margate and memories of her childhood, exploring how she revisits and retells her personal history. Emphasising the turbulent years she spent there, Mad Tracey From Margate: Everybody’s Been There 1997 lays bare her most intimate thoughts through handstitched phrases, letters and drawings, while the wooden rollercoaster It’s Not the Way I Want to Die 2005 takes inspiration from the town’s famous amusement park Dreamland to reflect on her anxieties and vulnerabilities.
Emin frequently confronts personal trauma and pain, dispelling the stigma surrounding issues that are often left undiscussed. The exhibition addresses the artist’s experience of sexual assault, including the neon I could have Loved my Innocence 2007 and the embroidered calico Is This a Joke 2009. In one of her most personal video works, How It Feels 1996, Emin gives a challenging yet empowering account of an abortion that went wrong, describing institutional neglect, the physical and psychological implications of refusing motherhood, and the misogyny associated with it. Shown publicly for the first time, the quilt The Last of the Gold 2002 is emblazoned with an ‘A to Z of abortion’, providing advice for women facing a similar situation.
At the heart of the show sit two seminal installations: Exorcism of the Last Painting I Ever Made 1996 and My Bed 1998. The first documents a period of three weeks where Emin locked herself in a Stockholm gallery attempting to reconcile her relationship with painting, which she had abandoned six years prior after her experience of abortion. This is followed by Emin’s iconic Turner-Prize nominated installation, documenting her recovery from an alcohol-fuelled breakdown. These extraordinary works move the visitor from Emin’s first life to her second life, post illness and surgery.
Emin’s experience of cancer, surgery and disability are directly addressed in the exhibition, emphasising her disregard for any separation of the personal and public. The recent bronze sculpture Ascension 2024, exploring Emin’s new relationship with her body following major surgery for bladder cancer, is joined by new photographs showing the stoma that she now lives with.
The exhibition culminates with the artist exploring the dimensions of her second life in painting. While pain and heartbreak are still present, Emin’s ambitious large-scale paintings offer a transcendent, spiritual quality, showing a resolute determination to live in the present. Never without a darker side, the sculpture Death Mask 2002 sits amongst these expansive paintings illustrating a life lived to the full. Moving beyond the gallery walls, the monumental bronze I Followed You Until The End 2023 commands the landscape outside Tate Modern, inviting passersby to experience Emin’s groundbreaking, visceral work.
I’m very excited about having a show at Tate Modern. For me, it’s one of the greatest international contemporary art museums in the world and it’s here in London. I feel this show, titled ‘A second Life’, will be a bench mark for me. A moment in my life when I look back and go forward. A true celebration of living”
Dame Tracey Emin
Presented in the Eyal Ofer Galleries at Tate Modern, the exhibition is organised in partnership with Gucci, with additional support from the Tracey Emin Exhibition Supporters Circle and Tate Members.
Tracey Emin: A Second Life is at Tate Modern from 27th February to 31st August 2026.
Find more information and book tickets here.
