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Tracey Emin: A Second Life

Tate Modern presents the largest ever survey exhibition celebrating the groundbreaking work of world-renowned artist Dame Tracey Emin (b.1963). Emin’s commitment to unapologetic self-expression has transformed our understanding of what art can be and continues to influence contemporary art today, using the female body to explore passion, pain and healing.

Spanning her extraordinary 40-year practice - from seminal installations made in the 1990s, to recent paintings and bronzes going on display for the first time - A Second Life marks the most significant exhibition of Emin’s career, tracing the key life events that have shaped her journey and transformation. Conceived in close collaboration with the artist, it brings together over 100 works encompassing painting, video, textile, neon, sculpture and installation, demonstrating her raw approach to sharing experiences of love, trauma and personal growth.

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.

Dame Tracey Emin said “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”

Eduard Habicher. Memory in Motion

Museion inaugurates its 2026 exhibition program with Eduard Habicher. Memory in Motion, a show dedicated to the 70th birthday of South Tyrolean sculptor Eduard Habicher (born in 1956 in Malles).

The exhibition unfolds across the spaces of Museion Passage and the Piccolo Museion – Cubo Garutti and is free of charge. A leading figure in contemporary sculpture in South Tyrol, Eduard Habicher has consolidated a significant international presence over the decades.

His practice is particularly recognized for large-scale interventions in public space, where sculptural form engages in dialogue with architecture and urban landscapes. His works are permanently installed in both public and private contexts, including the Terme di Merano and the Fundación Pablo Atchugarry in Uruguay; additional works can be found in Berlin, along the River Spree, on the campus of the European Energy Forum (EUREF), as well as in various locations across Italy and Austria.

At Museion Passage, four monumental sculptures – Hommage, Passage, Geöffnet-aperto, and Pro-tetto – are presented in direct dialogue with the museum’s architecture. Created from industrial profiles and stainless steel, the works emerge from a process of highly precise craftsmanship: standardized materials are bent and shaped until they generate a formal tension balanced between mass and lightness. Red, a recurring element in the artist’s visual language, visually unifies the intervention.

Placed directly within the space, without pedestals, the sculptures accompany visitors along Passage, integrating into the daily flow of this open environment. Movement, openness, and spatial awareness are central elements in Habicher’s research and find in Museion Passage a context of particular resonance. As a freely accessible venue, Passage encourages a direct encounter with contemporary art, transcending the conventional thresholds of the museum.

The exhibition project is further enriched by a 360° Virtual Tour that allows visitors to virtually access the artist’s studio, offering an in-depth view of his working environment. The Virtual Tour was created by Camillo Ciuccoli, Creative Technologist.

Chiharu Shiota conquers Turin: MAO surpasses 100,000 visitors

Turin’s MAO sets a historic record: 100,000 visitors in less than four months for The Soul Trembles, the exhibition dedicated to Chiharu Shiota, which opened last October 22. An unprecedented milestone in the exhibition history of the Museum of Oriental Art, confirming the strength of a program capable of combining research, vision, and the ability to engage with the present.

The figure is even more significant when considering its steady trend: around 5,000 visitors per week, with a peak of 15,000 admissions during the Christmas holidays. These numbers tell not only the story of a successful exhibition, but also of the consolidation of a museological transformation that in recent years has broadened both the MAO’s audiences and its languages.

The Soul Trembles is not a simple solo show: it is an intervention that “inhabits” and transforms the spaces of Palazzo Mazzonis, engaging in dialogue with the permanent collections. A project of strong expressive impact, capable of raising universal questions—identity, relationships with others, life and death—and of engaging even those who do not usually visit exhibitions.

Among the most significant indicators is the expansion of the audience: alongside regular museumgoers and subscribers, there has been a growth in younger visitors—particularly in the 20–29 age group—as well as an increase in school participation. At the same time, the exhibition’s success is reflected in the digital sphere: a steadily growing online community, a rise in newsletter subscribers, and a marked increase in organic visibility on Facebook and Instagram, testifying to broader and more sustained audience engagement.

For a “niche” museum like the MAO, this result carries double significance: it demonstrates that scholarly quality can go hand in hand with strong narrative and communicative power. Shiota’s language - deep, emotional, immediate - combined with a communication strategy attentive to digital platforms and accessibility, has made the museum more recognizable and closer to contemporary sensibilities.

A record that is not just a number: it is the sign of a museum changing pace, expanding its audiences, and strengthening its position in Turin and beyond.

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