More Passion

Location

Country: France
City: Paris
Place: British Embassy

‘More Passion’, a neon sculpture by Tracey Emin, is the Featured Work for July to celebrate the artist’s 50th birthday on 3 July.

Written in coral pink neon, More Passion by Tracey Emin is an emphatic call, demand even, for love. The sculpture is one of a several artworks by Emin in which she spells out heartfelt messages in bold neon. 

Emin presented the sculpture to the Government Art Collection, for intended display at 10 Downing Street. In creating More Passion for this particular building, Emin draws attention to the functional aspect of many of state rooms in Downing Street. These are spaces through which government ministers, international dignitaries and visitors enter and therefore Emin’s text might well give them pause to reflect. In this context – and because of the brightness of the neon and the fact that the words are underlined in emphasis – More Passion becomes a rallying call; a wish for more commitment and passion to be brought across the whole spectrum of political life. 

Emin’s art is famously autobiographical. Using her life history as inspiration and source she has created a body of work which encompasses painting, drawing, video and installation, photography, needlework, sculpture and neon. For a joint 2010 exhibition at London’s Foundling Museum with artists Paula Rego and Mat Collishaw, and in tribute to the fact that the museum was originally a home for abandoned children, Emin  adorned the building’s façade with the neon words ‘Foundlings and fledglings are angels of this earth’.

In Emin’s show at the Hayward Gallery on London’s Southbank in 2011, 16 neon signs were grouped together on a long wall in the darkened gallery. Some of these bright messages struck a fiery and defiant note, others were simply knowing and playful, while Emin’s handwritten text in blue neon saying ‘Love Is What You Want’ (taken from a Marc Bolan song) appeared to be more gentle and plaintive. Whether she uses neon or creates words and phrases using stitching or embroidery, Emin is a consummate storyteller – as she herself commented in 2001, ‘it’s my words that make my art unique’.

Tracey Emin was born in London in 1963 and grew up in Margate. Emin has described her practice as being about ‘rites of passage, of time and age, and the simple realisation that we are always alone’. In recent years, painting and bronze sculpture have become her primary focus in works where the body as a battle ground comes to the fore. She has exhibited internationally at solo and group exhibitions in Holland, Germany, Japan, Australia and America. In 1999 she was short-listed for the Turner Prize at the Tate Gallery, London. She has had major exhibitions at the Royal Academy of Arts, London (2020); The Musée d’Orsay, Paris (2019); Château La Coste, Aix-en-Provence, France (2017); Leopold Museum, Vienna (2015); Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami (2013); Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires; and Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK (both, 2012); In 2007, Emin represented Britain at the Venice Biennale.

Places

Subjects

text-based work

Materials & Techniques

neon, sculpture (as object name), neon sculpture

Artist

Tracey Emin (1963 - )

Title

More Passion

Edition

1/3

Date

2010

Medium

Coral Pink neon sculpture

Dimensions

height: 46.00 cm, width: 112.00 cm

Acquisition

Presented by the artist, August 2011

Provenance

the artist (gift, initially for use in 10 Downing Street)

GAC number

18411