Dame Tracey Emin exhibition to launch at Tate Modern

Dame Tracey Emin has said her new Tate Modern show will be a “benchmark” for her work.

Her largest ever survey exhibition of her work, it will look back at Dame Tracey’s 40-year-career and includes defining works along with pieces that have never been exhibited publicly before.

A spokesman for the London art gallery said the exhibition, named Second Life, brings together more than 100 works encompassing painting, video, textile, neon, sculpture and installation and will look at how Dame Tracey has used the “female body as a powerful tool to explore passion, pain, and healing”.

It includes works from her first ever solo exhibition at White Cube in 1993, and two of her most well known installations, Exorcism Of The Last Painting I Ever Made (1996) and My Bed (1998), the latter of which was nominated for the Turner Prize.

Dame Tracey’s quilt, The Last of the Gold 2002, which is emblazoned with an “A to Z of abortion” providing advice for women facing a similar situation, will be shown publicly for the first time.

And her more recent bronze sculpture Ascension 2024, which explores her new relationship with her body following major surgery for bladder cancer, is joined by new photographs showing the stoma that she now lives with.

Dame Tracey, who was given a damehood for her services to art in 2024, 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 benchmark for me. A moment in my life when I look back and go forward. A true celebration of living.”

Tracey Emin: A Second Life will launch at the Tate Modern on Friday and run until August 31.