Tracey Emin’s CV: Cunt Vernacular (1997) constitutes the artist’s self-portrait and the story of her life up to the point of its making. Read aloud by Emin, the sound-track to the video provides a contrasting background to the visual information on display. As Emin narrates her life story of trauma and abuse, mixed with pleasure and success, the video takes the viewer on a journey through the artist's home. The artist is not visibly present in person until the last frames when she appears curled up naked on the floor of her sitting-room at the feet of her mother (who wears black sunglasses and looks away from both her daughter and the camera). The video was originally titled Tracey Emin Curriculum Vitae, but the artist later replaced the words 'curriculum vitae' with 'cunt vernacular' as a pun referring to her sexual history.
Public Collections:
Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem, The Netherlands
Tate, London, UK
Selected Exhibitions:
2011, He disappeared into complete silence, De Hallen, Haarlem, The Netherlands
2009, Tracey Emin: 20 Años, Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, Málaga, Spain
2009, Tracey Emin: 20 Years, Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland
2008, Season of Diary Films, Curzon Soho, London, UK
2008, Tracey Emin: 20 Years, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, UK (exh. cat)
2008, Five portraits: A Selection from the Video Collection, De Hallen, Haarlem, The Netherlands
2003, Tracey Emin CV: Cunt Venacular, De Hallen Haarlem, The Netherlands
2002, Ten Years, Tracey Emin, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Selected Literature:
— Neal, Brown, Tracey Emin (Modern Artists). London: Tate Publishing, 2006, ill. p. 91, 93, 95, 103
— Emin, Tracey and Freedman, Carl, Tracey Emin. Ed. Honey Luard. New York: Rizzoli, 2006, ill. p. 147
— Exh. Cat. Video II: Allegorie. Dusseldorf: NRF- forum kultur und wirtschaft, 2005, ill. p. 80-85
— The Art of Tracey Emin. Ed. Mandy Merck and Chris Townsend. London: Thames & Hudson, 2002, ill. p. 161
— Exh. Cat. Life is a Bitch. Amsterdam: De Appel, 1998, ill.
— Exh. Cat. Visions du Réel Festival international de cinema. 2010, ill p. 466
— Exh. Cat. He Disappeared into complete silence, Eindhoven, 2011
