Up close and personal Emin show draws mixed reviews in Britain

0 Comments | AFP, August, 2008

EDINBURGH (AFP) — The first retrospective of work by Tracey Emin, the enfant terrible British artist who has made a career out of intimate personal details including her own unmade bed, has opened to mixed reviews.

As well as "My Bed", a mess of vodka bottles, cigarette butts and dirty underwear, "Tracey Emin: 20 Years" also features "Conversations With My Mum", a video of her talking to her mother, and "It's Not The Way I Want To Die", a model of the rollercoaster in her home town of Margate, southern England.

The show, at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, has attracted more than 13,000 visitors in the three weeks since it opened, but many critics have been scathing, accusing her of being unsubtle and self-important.

Most of the works focus on...