Monoprint on paper
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Tate Patrons
Patrons of New Art
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/tracey-emin-2590" aria-label="More by Tracey Emin" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Tracey Emin</a>
Fuck You Eddy
Presented by the Patrons of New Art (Special Purchase Fund) through the Tate Gallery Foundation 1999
abstraction
anger
architecture
cigarette packet
clothing and personal items
despair
emotions and human qualities
emotions, concepts and ideas
flat
miscellaneous
money
non-representational
objects
residential
sex
sex and relationships
society
text
<p>Emin places herself centre-stage in  her work, telling intimate stories about her life. 'It's like a cleansing of my soul.  It's not just getting rid of baggage or carnage. It's not that simple. Something actually happens within me.'</p><p>Several of the works refer to traumas, such as having an abortion or splitting up with her boyfriend. These painful events are conveyed with brutal simplicity and candour but, as she says, 'Being an artist isn't just about making nice things, or people patting you on the back; it's some kind of communication, a message'.</p><p><em>Gallery label, November 2002</em></p>
paper print monoprint
28 October 2002 – 5 January 2003
2003-01-05
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2002-10-28
Self Evident
Collection based display
23 August 2004 – 16 August 2005
2005-08-16
22 March 2004 – 21 August 2005
2005-08-21
2004-03-22
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2004-08-23
Tracey Emin
Collection based display
Fuck You Eddy
image: 584 × 752 mm
Presented by the <a href="/search?gid=999999965" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Patrons of New Art</a> (Special Purchase Fund) through the Tate Gallery Foundation 1999
<br/>Presented by the Patrons of New Art (Special Purchase Fund) through the Tate Gallery Foundation 1999<br/><a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/emin-fuck-you-eddy-p11569" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P11569</span></a>
<p>Emin's <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/m/monoprint" title="Glossary definition for 'Monoprint'"><span>monoprints</span></a> have a diaristic aspect and frequently depict events from the past. Often they incorporate text as well as image, although some bear only text and others only image. The text appears as the artist's stream of consciousness voice. The rapid, one-off technique involved in making monoprints is perfectly suited to (apparently) immediate expression, as is Emin's scratchy <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/d/drawing" title="Glossary definition for 'Drawing'"><span>drawing</span></a> style. Rarely displayed alone, the monoprints are particularly effective as collective fragments of intense emotional confrontation. <i>Fuck You Eddy</i> narrates an event from the artist's teenage years of sexual experimentation in Margate. The text is part back-to-front, part the right way round (although individual letters are sometimes back-to-front), reflecting the process of making monoprints which results in a mirror image of whatever is drawn or written. The text of this monoprint reads: 'There was Eddy - he was 26 - I was only 14 - He took me to the Naland Rock and fuked [sic] me/ He was pathetic - 2 seconds and it was over -'. This accompanies a drawing of the hotel, with a phallic lighthouse in the background. Below, Emin has written in <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/g/graphite" title="Glossary definition for 'Graphite'"><span>pencil</span></a> over the printed image of several objects, elaborating the text above and explaining the collection of objects: 'Then he collapsed - I phoned my mum from the hotel room - and said I was OK and on my way home - On my way out - I stole - His cigarettes - lighter - money And watch - '. Emin has stated:

</p><p></p><blockquote>
<p>For me, aggression, sex and beauty go together. Much of my work has been about memory, for example, but memories of violence and pain. Nowadays if I make a drawing I'm trying to draw love, but love isn't always gentle  Being an artist isn't just about making nice things, or people patting you on the back; it's some kind of communication, a message. (Quoted in Morgan, pp.59-60.)<br/></p></blockquote>
<p>Emin's courage in showing various seemingly contradictory aspects of herself - <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/a/abject-art" title="Glossary definition for 'Abject art'"><span>abject</span></a>, tortured and enraged - and her ability to translate negative personal experience into a form of affirmation, are among her greatest strengths as an artist. Her use of autobiographical material and her direct expression of emotional drives have a precedence in the text and drawing works of Louise Bourgeois (born 1911), who has based her work directly on such material since the early 1980s, producing her <i>Autobiographical Series</i> of <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/print" title="Glossary definition for 'Print'"><span>prints</span></a> (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/bourgeois-toilette-p77682" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P77682</span></a>-95) in 1994. See Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/emin-going-to-crack-p11562" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P11562</span></a> and <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/unknown-artist-britain-bunkers-hill-or-the-blessed-effects-of-family-quarrels-t11565" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>T11565</span></a>-8 for other Emin monoprints.

</p><p><b>Further reading:<br/></b><i>Sex and the British</i>, exhibition catalogue, Galerie Thaddeus Ropac, Salzburg 2000, pp.3-4 and 25-9<br/>Neal Brown, Sarah Kent, Matthew Collings, <i>Tracey Emin: I Need Art Like I Need God</i>, exhibition catalogue, Jay Jopling, London 1998, p.6<br/>Stuart Morgan, 'The Story of I: Interview with Tracey Emin', <i>Frieze</i>, issue 34, May 1997, pp.56-61

</p><p>Elizabeth Manchester<br/>July 2000

</p><p></p>
Summary
2005-12-22T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
<p>
Emin places herself centre-stage in <br/>
her work, telling intimate stories about her life. 'It's like a cleansing of my soul. <br/>
It's not just getting rid of baggage or carnage. It's not that simple. Something actually happens within me.'</p>
<p>
 </p>
<p>
Several of the works refer to traumas, such as having an abortion or splitting up with her boyfriend. These painful events are conveyed with brutal simplicity and candour but, as she says, 'Being an artist isn't just about making nice things, or people patting you on the back; it's some kind of communication, a message'.</p>
<p>
 </p>
Display caption
2002-11-11T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
abstraction anger architecture cigarette packet clothing and personal items despair emotions and human qualities emotions, concepts and ideas flat miscellaneous money non-representational objects residential sex sex and relationships society text