The career of Tracey Emin, one of the best-known contemporary British artists, has become a potent symbol of the relationship between art and celebrity in our time. When it was exhibited in London at the Tate in 1999, her now notorious installation "My Bed" was denounced by conservative critics as a national scandal, but this and her other work have continued to attract ever larger audiences. Whether storming drunkenly out of live television debates, talking tearfully about her abortions, or modeling evening gowns for Vivienne Westwood, Tracey Emin makes headlines.
Yet if Emin is now universally recognized as a media phenomenon, her work has also begun to attract serious critical attention. In The Art of Tracey Emin, distinguished critics from Britain and the United States address her achievement in depth for the first time, tracing Emin's influences from Egon Schiele to Judy Chicago and establishing her place in a larger tradition of postmodern and feminist art. Adopting a variety of critical approaches, contributors explore the full range of Emin's work, from photography and monoprints to installation art and videos, showing that, however raw and personal it may seem to be, it actually represents a carefully meditated response to vital issues in contemporary culture and society.