Apollo Magazine

Tracey Emin/Edvard Munch: The Loneliness of the Soul

Themes of loss and longing unite the Norwegian painter and the erstwhile YBA in this show at the Royal Academy

It - didnt stop - I didnt stop (detail; 2019), Tracey Emin.

It - didnt stop - I didnt stop (detail; 2019), Tracey Emin. Courtesy Xavier Hufkens; © Tracey Emin. All rights reserved, DACS 2020

While some museums are closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Apollo’s usual weekly pick of exhibitions will include shows at institutions that are currently open as well as digital projects providing virtual access to art and culture.

For this display at the Royal Academy of Arts in London (7 December–28 February 2021), Tracey Emin has selected 19 works by Edvard Munch – one of the erstwhile YBA’s key art-historical touchstones – to show alongside her own works, demonstrating the convergent ways in which both artists have explored loss, longing and loneliness. Emin’s pick of works from the Munchmuseet in Oslo focuses on the Norwegian artist’s vexed relationship with women and the process of ageing, caused in part by the deaths of his mother and closest sister early in his life. Emin has similarly used art as a means of exploring and expressing complex and conflicting emotional states – as attested by her 25 paintings, neons and sculptures on display here, which include works that have not been shown until now. Find out more from the RA’s website.

Preview below | View Apollo’s Art Diary here

The Death of Marat (1907), Edvard Munch. Munchmuseet, Oslo

I am The Last of my Kind (2019), Tracey Emin. Courtesy Galleria Lorcan O’Neill; © Tracey Emin. All rights reserved, DACS 2020

Female Nude (1919–24), Edvard Munch, Munchmuseet, Oslo

Because you left (2016), Tracey Emin. © Tracey Emin. All rights reserved, DACS 2020

It – didnt stop – I didnt stop (2019), Tracey Emin. Courtesy Xavier Hufkens; © Tracey Emin. All rights reserved, DACS 2020

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