Tracey Emin's A Second Life Retrospective Opens at Tate Modern
A major retrospective at Tate Modern surveys four decades of Tracey Emin's uncompromising artistic practice, from her earliest confessional works to new pieces reflecting on mortality and transformation.
Tate Modern opens A Second Life, a comprehensive retrospective of Tracey Emin's work, on February 27, 2026. The exhibition spans her four-decade career and marks the most extensive examination of an artist whose confessional practice fundamentally altered contemporary approaches to autobiography in art.
The show fills the entirety of the Turbine Hall's west wing plus additional galleries in the main building, bringing together approximately 150 works including early installations, neons, drawings, films, and new pieces created specifically for this exhibition. It is the largest single-artist presentation the museum has devoted to a British woman artist in recent years.
An artist whose willingness to remain vulnerable in public, decade after decade, is something quite rare in any art career.
Emin described the retrospective as a moment of reckoning. 'When I look back at this work, it feels like looking at someone else,' she said in a preview tour. 'My life has been so intertwined with this practice that seeing it all together, I don't recognize myself. I'm in an unrecognizable phase now.'
The exhibition traces a clear arc from Emin's early confrontations with gender, sexuality, and trauma through her mature explorations of grief, love, and mortality. Key works include The Last Great Adventure Is You (2015-2016), a series of large-scale neons that marked a shift toward more abstract meditation. Also on display is the complete My Bed installation, first shown in 1998, which remains one of the most provocative works in British contemporary art and established Emin's international reputation.
New works in the exhibition reflect on time passing. A series of large charcoal drawings created during the pandemic shows Emin revisiting themes of solitude and introspection but with a new rawness. A monumental neon piece spells out text drawn from diary entries about accepting change and embracing whatever remains of life.
The exhibition arrives at a moment of institutional vindication for Emin, who was controversially passed over for representation at the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2007. She received the Turner Prize in 1999 and has been the subject of numerous major exhibitions, but this Tate retrospective confirms her position as one of Britain's most significant contemporary artists. Her work is held in collections including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Art Institute of Chicago.
Curated by Polly Staple, formerly of the Chisenhale Gallery and more recently director of the British Art Show, the exhibition emphasizes continuity across Emin's career rather than dividing it into distinct phases. 'What becomes clear is that she's been asking the same questions throughout,' Staple said. 'What does it mean to be alive, to love, to lose, to keep going. The forms change but the inquiries remain consistent.'
The timing of the exhibition also resonates with broader cultural conversations about women's visibility in art institutions. Tate Modern has mounted major retrospectives of pioneering women artists in recent years, including a comprehensive showing of Frida Kahlo's work and exhibitions dedicated to Eva Hesse and Agnes Martin. Emin's retrospective fits within this ongoing effort to correct historical imbalances in how institutions present art history.
Critical reception has been largely positive, with reviewers praising both the ambition of the presentation and the emotional resonance of seeing Emin's career assembled comprehensively. The Guardian described it as 'unflinching and often unbearably poignant,' while The Times noted that 'Emin's willingness to remain vulnerable in public, decade after decade, is something quite rare in any art career.'
The exhibition runs through September 2026 and is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalog with essays by Staple, Jeanette Winterson, and others. A program of public events includes conversations between Emin and artists she admires, workshops exploring autobiographical art-making, and late-night openings with live performances.
A Second Life represents both a summation and a continuation for Emin. At 62, she shows no sign of retreating from the uncompromising personal inquiry that has defined her practice. If anything, the new works suggest an artist becoming more direct, less concerned with provocation for its own sake and more focused on what actually matters. The retrospective offers audiences a chance to witness that evolution and to reconsider an artistic career that has always refused easy answers.