Still An Enigma

Tracey Emin has forged her artistic career on making a public display of the most shocking and personal elements of her life story. Thanks to her embroidered tent, Everyone I've Ever Slept With, we know more about her sex life than we do about most of our friends. She has made exhibitions out of the sexual abuse she suffered as a child, her abortion and her darkest feelings of loss, self-doubt and betrayal. Even her grubby sheets have been on display at the Tate. How much more do we want or need to know? Those who do want more detail on all the best-known Emin myths won't be disappointed by Strangeland. It follows her down the dark alley where she was raped, aged 13. It details with some relish her stinking flat, her alcoholism and her wanking habits. And it describes, movingly, how she was left holding a dead foetus in the back of a London taxi five days after her botched abortion. But the real revelations here are of a gentler kind. While her best-known art has shown Emin at her most confrontational, in her writing, we meet a calmer, more sensitive soul. (Strangeland by Tracey Emin Sceptre £14.99) For the full story - click the title Irish Art