In the sweltering summer heat of Firenze, a cooled exhibition entitled “Sex and Solitude” is the perfect respite. It’s not only the title that is provocative, but the imagery as well. Both the poster announcing the exhibition and the massive sculpture in the courtyard drew me to this like a moth to a flame. I had to see this.

The exhibition is relatively short but deeply fascinating, deserving of much more analysis and dissection than I’ll be able to offer in a few short paragraphs. So instead of talking about the exhibition, I want to talk about the exhibition.

The works in this exhibition are deeply personal, as explained in the programme booklet and the interview with Arturo Glansino shown near the cloakroom. Then again, you don’t need to be told so, the fact is glaringly obvious as you experience the exhibition yourself. This makes for a very intimate experience, but it is also immediate cause for discomfort.

“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)

Explicitly consuming the results of a private coping mechanism someone used to deal with her personal trauma is a strange quality that is not exclusive to this exhibition. When I leave museums I often feel very grateful that they and their exhibitions exist, but there is always a seed of discomfort. There is much one can say about consuming art that is so personal and private.

There is an inherent invasion of privacy, we are voyeuristically benefitting from her attempts at working through her suffering. At the same time there may be some hope for reconciliation. The work in an exhibition may be personal, but it is not the person. It’s a glimpse of a persona, the work that Emin and others allow us to see of themselves doesn’t equate their personhood. At the end of the day when we leave an exhibition we have a construction of an artist, solely based on the work they have shown to us and our interpretation of it. That will never encompass the vastness of any single person. This essay, my writing, is no different.

I don’t know if that makes the situation easier to bear, or perhaps easier to ignore. Either way, it’s something we can tell ourselves to rest a little easier at night.

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