Exercise 5.3 take a work of contemporary art and imagine it was not an never had been a work of art. What is the difference.

Installation view of Tracey Emin, My Bed, at the Turner Prize Exhibition, Tate Gallery, London, 1999-2000. Photo copyright Stephen White, 2018, Tracey Emin. DACS, London, ARS, NYC, Courtesy of White Cube, image via http://www.artsy.net.

I have decided to take Tracey’s Emin artwork ‘My Bed,’ 1998. This object was a reconstruction of her undone bed as it appeared after the author came out of a depressive emotional state and a period of heavy alcoholism. Even though this art object sparked a lot of controversies, it was nominated for Turner Prize. Tracey Emin had a turbulent period after a difficult personal relationship breakup. She ended up spending several days in bed considering suicide. After getting better, she found herself surrounded by a total mess, such as crumpled and stained bedsheets, cigarettes, vodka bottles, condoms, etc. She looked at her bed and decided it was a work of art. Many people found the installation boring and not deserving a word as ‘artwork’. However, many found it very appealing because they felt connected with their vulnerability, stress, anxiety, and depression. In her article (30.07.2018), Alina Cohen said: ‘ It remains one of contemporary art’s most striking depictions of vulnerability, a self-portrait that doesn’t veer from the messiness of depression and heartbreak.’ and ‘… her work elevates the anxieties of life as a woman to monumental status’. Some art critics found this installation as a ‘powerful symbolism’ what such object as a bed brings in itself – ‘ a stage for birth, depressive isolation, and death.’ (Alina Cohen, 30.07.2018). Another opinion is made by Alison Cole (Independent, 30.03.2015) ‘ white draped and crumpled sheets have their own pictorial allure, inviting comparison with classical sculpted drapery and the unmade beds in Titian’s and Manet’s boudoirs’.
This artwork is considered to be confession art, which I understand is a type of conceptual art. It is just amazing to see and to realize that every day millions of people find themselves in beds, which are undone and are very close to the state of Emin’s famous bed. However, they are not considered to be artwork. Why is it so? Do they have to be on public display and an art professional should write about them to be considered as artwork? It is clear that conceptual art goes beyond common, conventional, and popular aesthetic norms, pushing forward an idea, a state of mind, a mood, an emotion behind the object. As Alison Cole writes (Independent, 30.03.2015) ‘ Emin takes the unspoken and the unspeakable, and creates and installation that is full of vital visual interest and human vulnerability, while challenging the intellectual pomposity that characterises much conceptual art’.

Obviously, without a personal Emin’s story, her bed would be just another ordinary messy bed. Suppose we know the story behind the object. In that case, we realize how someone was connecting or was dealing with their reality, and the result of this process could be beautiful and touching us comprehensively and inclusively, so we see an art object at the end.

However, there is an apposite opinion about why we should not consider this installation as an artwork. Dutch artist Jacob Zaaiman well articulates it. He addresses the core question in Art, which ‘is about identifying and clarifying the precise nature of art so that we can make objective assessments about what we presented with.’ No single Theory of Art would fully describe this human existence phenomenon and clearly explains what should be considered Art and what should not. Jacob Zaaiman puts this in his way: ‘the good Art is all about showing us realms of experience with which we are not already familiar, or could not easily arrive at on our own. It’s not about ordinary anguish or everyday distress. It’s about exploring strangeness and the uncanny.’
His main idea about what should be recognised as an artwork can be described as the created object should not be out of our human’s ordinary realm. He says further:”Ordinariness covers everything from the boring to the shocking, and from the comforting to the frightening, and from the pleasant to the disgusting, so presenting

people with examples of these states is not art’.’
He finds Tracey’s artworks problematic from this point of view and especially the ‘My Bed’ installation. I think it would be interesting to bring his opinion here. He says she is a ‘creative craftswoman’, but not an artist. He continues further: “Her works are always curiously ordinary and atmospherically flat… Even the unmade bed is surprisingly shallow when you try to take up its narrative invitation… it doesn’t seem to have to go anywhere.’
I brought these polemics because it reflects the question in the Exercise. Art versus not Art. Beauty in ordinary, familiar things versus the beauty of unordinary, higher, unfamiliar realms, which are difficult to sense in everyday routine. I dare to say that these opposite views on this installation do answer the question in the exercise. If we imagine t the installation as if it was not a work of art, then it would be just another unmade and messy bed.

Bibliography: 1) Tracey Emin, My Bed, 1998, online on http://www.blog.artsper.com, [accessed on July 31, 2021];
2) Tracey Emin’s ‘My Bed’ Ignored Society’s Expectations of Women; Alina Cohen, Jul 30, 2018, online on http://www.artsy.net; [accessed on August 1, 2021];

3) ‘Tracey Emin’s My Bed at Tate Britain, review:In the flesh, its frankness is still arresting’. Alison Cole, 30/03.2015, Independent, online on http://www.indpendent.co.uk; [accessed on September 10, 2021];

4)‘It’s just Unmade Bed: Why Tracey Emin (Amongst others) Fails as an Artist’, by Jacob Zaaiman, online on http://www.artzine.com; [accessed on September 10, 2021]