Tracey Emin
Sex and Solitude
16 March—20 July 2025
Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, Italy
Palazzo Strozzi presents Sex and Solitude, the first institutional exhibition in Italy dedicated to Tracey Emin, one of the most important contemporary artists of our time. Bringing together over sixty historical and new artworks, the exhibition offers an immersive journey into Emin’s deeply autobiographical universe, where art and life intertwine in an intimate exploration of desire, pain, and memory.
The title evokes two central aspects of the artist’s work: on one hand, the body and sexuality, expressed through images of intense physicality; on the other, solitude and vulnerability, which pervade her work and find expression in a figurative language charged with emotional tension. This thematic exhibition traces her career from the 1990s to today, featuring paintings, drawings, sculptures, videos, and installations, documenting how Emin experiments with a wide range of materials and techniques, from embroidery to bronze, from neon to canvas, translating personal experiences into universal metaphors with a raw and direct visual language.
The body—both fragile and carnal—has always been at the heart of her artistic exploration, suspended between desire and suffering, love and loss. In this pursuit, Emin engages in direct dialogue with art history, drawing inspiration from artists such as Edvard Munch and Egon Schiele, whose emotional and psychological intensity resonates in her work. Her work also enters into a broader conversation with the legacy of the Renaissance and the very architecture of Palazzo Strozzi itself.
“Every image has first entered my mind, travelled through my heart, my blood—arriving at the end of my hand. Everything has come through me.” — Tracey Emin