00:00Hello, I'm Maria Balshaw and I am Director of Tate and we're here this
00:04morning exploring Tracey Emin's new exhibition at Tate Modern, A Second Life.
00:10The blankets are the size of paintings and they're as textured and as rich as
00:14the complex painting works that you have in this exhibition but they're made out
00:19of domestic materials. She uses bits of curtain from her mum's home and the home
00:25she grew up in in Margate. Bits and pieces that look like your gran's
00:30fabrics and in fact we're right by a chair which it was a gift from her
00:35grandmother. The piece is called There's a Lot of Money in Chairs and it was
00:39something her gran said to her meaning really you know money stuffed down the
00:43back of chairs and as things were often in the old days. If we walk this way
00:48we're walking around a replica of the roller coaster in Margate. She only ever
00:53went on the roller coaster once and we know why when we find out the title of
00:58the work and it's called It's Not How I Want to Die. So she was terrified of this
01:03trip but it's an iconic piece in Margate and she's built the structure from
01:10leftover bits of architrave and skirting board and doors from houses that were
01:15being regenerated in Margate. So the whole room reflects on the town and that made her
01:21and it gives us some of the key themes of Tracey's work. As we move on through the
01:27exhibition the next room explores the subject that is probably most known from
01:32Tracey. Sex and sexual violence in this room and sexual experience has been
01:39something that Tracey's always used throughout her career. I'm standing in
01:43front of The Last of the Gold, one of Tracey's iconic blanket works. This one has
01:49never been seen in public before because many of the blankets were made to go on
01:53people's beds. They were bought by private individuals so this one went into
01:58private hands and was never seen in a gallery or a museum anywhere. I saw it
02:04last year when I was visiting Florence to see a show by Tracey Emin at the
02:09Palazzo Strozzi and what it deals with is the experience of abortion, a subject that
02:14Tracey has explored many times but in this blanket the whole bottom half is
02:20like an advice manual for women. She tells you how to speak to the doctor, how to
02:25process your emotions, she gives you some advice on what to do if a condom splits
02:30and there's this incredible detail and care about other women and I'm really
02:37delighted that we were able to bring it for this exhibition. We're just passing
02:42through the corridor gallery and what's in this room are two sets of really
02:48pretty extraordinary photographs. On this side there is a series of Polaroids,
02:53self-portraits of Tracey's body that she took in 2001. On the other side there are
02:59some of the bravest photographs I think I've ever seen of Tracey's body now and it's
03:05presented with the care and attention and detail that her young body on the other
03:11side is. We're now at my bed. This is without doubt the most famous work Tracey Emin
03:17has ever made. It's one of those pieces that everybody recognizes. It's at the
03:22beginning of the second life in this exhibition because Tracey wants us all to
03:28look at it again and she says it's not about thinking about her life and her bed and
03:34her sexual experience. It's about thinking about our own lives. We've all we all have
03:40beds we all sleep in them we all have days and weeks where life is messy and that's
03:45what my bed gives us. The whole of any person's life and it's paired with this
03:52beautiful neon and where she tells us it's not me that's crying it's my soul. So she
03:59has made it into a work that is about the human condition and then the last two rooms
04:05explore painting paired with sculpture. These days Tracey Emin is predominantly a
04:11painter. Many of these horizontal works have got beds in the painting but the bed
04:18now is a place of sanctuary and recuperation. A place sometimes to hide away
04:24but also a place for love and joy. In front of me now we've got this new
04:29sculpture called I'll Never Be Alone which came to the exhibition straight from
04:34the foundry so it literally hasn't been seen by anybody until it came into this
04:39exhibition. The final room is both somber and joyous. It's a series of vertical
04:46portraits of Tracey at stages in her life and they line the room and at the center
04:53is a death mask which Tracey made in 2002 and she casts her own face so an imagined
05:01dead Tracey gives us the kind of focus for this beautiful room which is really
05:07about redemption and spirituality and the very final painting right at the end is
05:14called I Watch Myself Die and Come Alive Again and I think that's what this
05:19exhibition is really about. An artist who is looking back across her whole career
05:24and with a sense of relief and joy that she is still here with us. I hope she'll be
05:32with us until she's 100 so there can be many more retrospectives in the future but
05:38for now this is the best summary of Tracey's whole career and I really hope that
05:44Londoners love it. So Tracey M in A Second Life is my final exhibition. What I get to
05:51do with my colleagues and what I get to share with the public is this sense of a
05:56museum that speaks to the issues that we care about today that I hope brings joy to
06:02people that visit and that also that they learn something and that's what was
06:08that's our mission at Tate to promote the enjoyment and understanding of art and as the
06:14first female director of Tate I am very pleased that I leave the organisation and with an inclusive
06:23way of addressing that mission. I think the future for museums is even more exciting as
06:31the years go past. The point of museums is that we share extraordinary objects in real life
06:38and that we get to look at these pieces and think about what it makes us feel in the company
06:43of other
06:45strangers and people from all over London and all over the world so it's a social experience and I think
06:52those two things you know the importance of real objects and the importance of the company of others and are
07:00the
07:00future for museums. We need those kind of social spaces for our own mental health and well-being
07:07and they're part of London being such a dynamic place. I shall be one of those excited and curious
07:15visitors in the future myself because I'm stepping down from Tate I don't I'm not going to run any other
07:23museums. I'm going to work with artists and I'm going to write about art. I'm going to do quite a
07:30lot of
07:30gardening as well. I haven't had much time for that over the last 10 years but I'm going to continue
07:36to be a
07:37great champion for museums.
