Credit: Tracey Emin, Th End Of Love, 2024
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Tracey Emin’s career has spanned over 40 years, and her work makes her one of the most recognisable names in contemporary British art. And her achievements are to be recognised with her largest-ever exhibition, which lands at London’s Tate Modern next week.
Titled Tracey Emin: A Second Life, the giant exhibition opens at the Tate at the end of February, with a mix of her most well-known pieces as well as works that have never been shown to the public before.
Credit: Tracey Emin Tracey Emin: A Second Life at the Tate Modern
Running at the Tate Modern between February 27 – August 31, 2026, Tracey Emin’s landmark A Second Life exhibition shows more than 90 works, with many you’ll likely recognise, including the two pieces that are at the heart of the exhibition, Exorcism of the Last Painting I Ever Made 1996 and the Turner Prize-nominated My Bed 1998, which documents the artist’s ‘recovery from an alcohol-fuelled breakdown’. Elsewhere in the exhibition, you’ll see works from Emin from the 2020s, including her I Followed You Until The End 2023 statue stood outside the Tate.
Tracey Emin ‘My Bed’
At the beginning of the exhibition, visitors will see pieces from her first solo exhibition, My Major Retrospective, featuring tiny photographs of her paintings she completed at art school, as well as her six-minute video storytelling piece, Why I Never Became A Dancer 1995, which recounts her time growing up in Margate.
The title of the exhibition references Emin addressing her own ‘second life’, with the artist addressing her experience of cancer, surgery, and disability in the exhibition, with her sculpture Ascension 2024 exploring her relationship with her body following surgeries for bladder cancer, which is also adressed with stills from a new documentary that will premiere at the Tate that shows the stoma and urostomy bag Emin now lives with.
Speaking on the exhibition, Dame Tracey Emin said: “I’m very excited about having a show at Tate Modern. For me, it’s one of the greatest international contemporary art museums in the world and it’s here in London. I feel this show, titled ‘A second Life’, will be a bench mark for me. A moment in my life when I look back and go forward. A true celebration of living.”
‘Tracey Emin: A Second Life’ is landing at the Tate Modern on February 27, 2026 and will run until August 31, 2026. Find out more about it here.