Loneliness of the Soul – A Review of the Emin – Munch Exhibition

The Loneliness of the Soul exhibition at the Royal Academy engenders such a sense of gloom and despair. Good art can be a mixed bag of the beautiful, skilful, thought provoking and shocking but it is rare to find an exhibition that is as doom ridden as the Emin Munch.

I have never really subscribed to the view that the purpose of art is to adorn walls…which is just as well!

Loneliness of the Soul – Tracey Emin, the Enfant Terrible of the Art World

Tracey Emin, the enfant terrible of the art world, is probably best known for the unmade bed art installation of 1999, littered with blood stained underwear and used condoms, famously exhibited at the Tate and she’s been building on the themes of sex, abuse, rape, trauma and unrequited love ever since.

Given that there are a torrent of paintings on the horrors of sex, and given that she’s the constant…you feel like shaking her and screaming, somewhat suburbanly, “Surely they can’t all have been bastards?” or “Why don’t you give these guys a wide berth and find someone nice and boring?”.

The Commoditisation of Angst

But sex and tragedy not only sell newspapers, they also sell art.

Here is a woman who has not only commercialised a troubled past but has managed to use it to rise to the top of the art world. She is now a Royal Academician and Professor of Drawing at the Royal Academy, a dizzying achievement in a male dominated arena.

Edvard Munch as Muse

And then there is the link with Munch, famed for The Scream, whose work acted as catalyst for this collection. But honestly, in the Loneliness of the Soul exhibition, Munch’s paintings seemed docile and urbane in comparison. There are no overtly angry or sexual political points to be seen.

Edvard Munch Nude

Edvard Munch tame in comparison to Tracey Emin

Conservative with a Capital C

If you think, based on her art and reputation, that Tracey Emin is left of the left you’d be wrong. A journalist reported that she had considered moving to France to dodge our punitive tax regime, that she is a Royalist and voted Conservative in the 2010 election.

Maybe in her later years, Tracey Emin will see fit to paint pictures depicting the joys of human relationships or still lives of flowers and cats. In the meantime visit the Royal Academy for the thought provoking Loneliness of the Soul exhibition.

Naive Portrait of a happy Cat which is definitely not part of the Loneliness of the Soul exhibition.

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