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Secret Knowledge

Tracey Emin

Richard Bright

Ben Harding

Secret Knowledge: Tracey Emin on Louise Bourgeois - Women Without Secrets

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Tracey Emin on Louise Bourgeois - Women Without Secrets

25/11/2013

BBC Four - Secret Knowledge, Tracey Emin on Louise Bourgeois - Women Without Secrets

An insight into the life and work of the French-American artist Louise Bourgeois.

Tracey Emin offers an insight into the life and work of the French-American artist Louise Bourgeois, famed for her sculptures and installations embodying her personal emotions.

With some of Louise Bourgeois' greatest works currently on display in two new exhibitions in Edinburgh, Tracey Emin offers a uniquely personal insight into the life and work of a ground-breaking artist. 

Louise Bourgeois came to prominence in the UK with her giant spider sculpture at Tate Modern. Her art was confessional and deeply personal, often exploring childhood traumas, sexual themes and her competing roles as an artist, wife and mother.

Tracey Emin became a close friend of Louise Bourgeois and in the last years of her life the two artists, separated in age by half a century, collaborated on a series of remarkable prints, completed just months before Bourgeois died in 2010, aged 98.

According to Emin: 'She could master her materials so well, whether it was a tiny piece of work on fabric, a delicate print or monumental sculptures... I think Louise was one of the greatest artists of the last two centuries.'

Taking us on a tour of Bourgeois' work at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art and the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh, Tracey discusses Bourgeois' art, their friendship and the experience of working with the great artist: 'I felt like I was holding the baton of time, of history, and that Louise was helping me through to the next stage of my life'.

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