Welcome to this fourth episode of Dior Talks. This podcast series will explore the connections between Creative Director of Women’s collections Maria Grazia Chiuri and contemporary women artists and curators. 

In this episode, series host Katy Hessel, the London-based writer, curator and art historian, talks to Tracey Emin, one of the pre-eminent figures of contemporary art in the UK. In 2017, Emin, whose practice has always been firmly yet uniquely framed within the history of feminist discourse, created a specially commissioned work, Should Love Last, for the Dior pop-up store at 44 Avenue Montaigne in Paris.

Tracey Emin CBE is one of the generations of Young British Artists (YBAs) who came to prominence in the early 1990s and whose work changed the landscape and language of contemporary art in the UK. Yet the immediacy and autobiographical narrative of her work has always set her slightly apart from her contemporaries. Working in painting, drawing, video and installation, and also photography, needlework and sculpture, she has always used her own life and childhood as her subject matter, to reassess the nature of “women’s work” and the position of women, and of femininity, within the frame of artistic expression. 

Emin was born in 1963 and grew up in Margate, a seaside town on the Kent Coast, and her childhood there, particularly her teenage years, form a powerful source of inspiration for her work.

In 1999 she was nominated for the prestigious Turner Prize in London and in 2007 she represented Great Britain at the Venice Biennial. She is a panelist and speaker and has lectured widely, including at the V&A Museum. In 2011, she was appointed professor of Drawing at the Royal Academy.

Discover a selection of works:

Tracey Emin, Should Love Last, 2016 (Dior store, 44 avenue Montaigne, Paris) https://www.dior.com/diormag/en_gb/article/interview-tracey-emin

Tracey Emin, The Mother, 2018 (The Museum Island, Oslo) https://www.themuseumisland.com/en/artist/tracey-emin/

Tracey Emin, Hate and Power Can be a Terrible Thing, 2004 https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/emin-hate-and-power-can-be-a-terrible-thing-t11891

https://www.jessicahemmings.com/tracey-emin-stitching-extreme/

Tracey Emin, A Fortnight of Tears, Exhibition at the White Cube gallery (February- April 2019, London) https://whitecube.com/exhibitions/exhibition/tracey_emin_bermondsey_2019

Louise Bourgeois with Tracey Emin, Do Not Abandon Me, 2009-2010 https://www.moma.org/collection/works/153422

Bow Down : Women in Art History, a podcast by Jennifer Higgie https://frieze.com/article/bow-down-podcast-women-art-history

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