Monday 25 May 2009

Tracey Emin's erotic/non erotic drawings

Tracy Emin talking about a series of drawings she made:
"I enjoyed making this series because I somehow felt removed from it. And even though it is an erotic subject, I even felt distant from the sexuality of the pictures. It was almost like I was trying to get to the bottom of something, understand something - what it means to be a woman, a single entity and feminine. There is no shock or offence intended. They were made for me, trying to deal with something that is going on in my mind. And that's the beautiful thing about drawing: it's intimate, like handwriting, and the dialogue is between the paper and me."

The ambiguity here is all in the fact that she actually "exhibits" those drawings. The subject being erotic, even though her intentions were not, by being seen by others, they become "officially" erotic.
I am very much interested in this moment when the author/artist still has the control over showing or not showing, letting the work be seen or not and in that way offering something erotic or not.
Whatever TE says her intentions were, she is showing her drawings.
Drawings :