The Visual (and Physical) Penetration of Tracey Emin's Abject Tent

"The Visual (and Physical) Penetration of Tracey Emin's Abject Tent (Everyone I Have Ever Slept With)"

Fig. 1: Tracey Emin, Tent (Everyone I Have Ever Slept With)

In “The Paradoxical Bodies of Contemporary Art,” Christine Ross re-conceptualizes the body and its corporeality that exists within contemporary art.[1] Ross applies Julia Kristeva’s theory on abjection in order to engage with ostensibly problematic bodies: the “fragmented, hysterical, vulnerable, grotesque, de-sublimated, and non-idealized” body, to be specific.[2] Kristeva defines abjection as “the revulsion and horror experienced by the child as it attempts to separate itself from the [pre-Oedipal] mother in the passage to the symbolic (paternal, social) order.”[3] For Ross, the abject belongs within the category of “corporeal rubbish” that artists have engaged with in order to reveal the incapacity of modern Western cultures to accept not only the maternal body, but also the materiality of the body and its permeable boundaries.[4] Female artist Tracey Emin relies on her own experience of femininity and womanhood in order to engage with abjection through the use of, of reference to, abject materials (and activities) which stand-in place for the absent physical, female body. Therefore, Emin uses her artwork to reveal the anxieties that continue to surround the abject female body in contemporary Western society.

Tracey Emin’s Tent (Everyone I have Ever Slept With) is a textile work that depicts a mattress within a tent appliquéd with the names of one hundred and two individuals whom the artist has ostensibly ‘slept with’ [fig. 1]. Thematically, Emin’s Tent illuminates the anxieties surrounding the female body’s abjectness and deviant types of femininity, in this case, the sexually promiscuous woman. The initial reception of this work was critical as viewers interpreted the title, ‘Tent (Everyone I Have Ever Slept With)’, in terms of Emin’s sexual conquests. Ross suggests that “[art]works that exemplify the abject” are, citing Simon Taylor, an “assault on the totalizing and homogenizing notions of identity, system and order” which applies to Emin’s Tent because it destabilises the traditional boundaries of femininity.[5] In effect, the abject is inherently anxiety provoking for viewers and society.

Emin’s deliberate decision to title this work “Tent (Everyone I Have Ever Slept With)” functions on two levels. On one level, the term ‘slept with’ refers to innocently sharing a bed with another individual. On another level, this same term is used to describe sexual intercourse with another individual. Emin’s deliberate word choice leaves the viewer in a state of anxiety as they are unsure of whether the artist refers to innocent or ostensibly immoral activity taking place within this tent, or upon this mattress. By reading Emin’s word choice in relation to sexual intercourse, Emin deliberately marks her own body as abject despite its absence within the installation space, or perhaps within the gallery more generally. Indeed, this interpretation takes Tent one step further; the suggestion of sexual intercourse appears to make the tent itself less innocent and more deviant. As the viewer interprets the title in relation to Emin’s sexual conquests, the tent itself becomes abject in and of itself, as it's internal space creates a quasi-vaginal opening that excites the viewer’s gaze while it invites them to enter this ostensibly sexual space. In effect, the viewer’s visual penetration of this space parallels the physical penetration that occurs during heterosexual intercourse. As a result, Emin fashions Tent as an abject space to metaphorically stand in place for her own abject body; the tent and title position Emin’s own body in metaphorical contrast to the closed, virginal feminine ideal.

Fundamentally, Emin’s Tent stands in place for the artist’s body and vaginal canal. Indeed, Emin’s bodily absence makes this installation that much more threatening to the viewer as they begin to recognise that Emin’s open, sexually available (and deviant) body continues to circulate freely in and among society. In a sense, the viewer’s disgust to this reality reifies the notion that contemporary Western society continues to be uncomfortable with abstract notions of femininity residing in actual physical, female bodies, and women who expose the realities of their innate abjectivity.

Plate List:

Fig. 1: Tracey Emin, Tent (Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963-1995) (1995), Appliquéd tent, mattress and light [destroyed], Saatchi Gallery, London, England.

Works Cited: [1] Christine Ross, “The Paradoxical Bodies of Contemporary Art,” A Companion to Contemporary Art Since 1945 (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), pp. 178-401. [2] Ross, “The Paradoxical Bodies of Contemporary Art,” p. 391. [3] Ross, “The Paradoxical Bodies of Contemporary Art,” p. 391. [4] Ross, “The Paradoxical Bodies of Contemporary Art,” p. 391. [5] Ross, “The Paradoxical Bodies of Contemporary Art,” p. 391.