Idiophonebox

Monument Valley (Grand Scale) (1995–97), Tracey Emin

The book is one she wrote in 10 days, an autobiographical work written with the considered rawness for which Emin has now become known. In the early 90s she toured America, giving readings to anyone who came to hear, sitting on her travelling storyteller chair, which was a gift to her from her grandmother (it originally belonged to her great-grandmother), which she patched with the names of the places she visited, like a suitcase. The chair is now an exhibit in its own right (There’s a lot of money in chairs, 1994). It’s a dialogue itself in the form of a chair, one that holds its own narrative shape between Emin and her grandmothers, between past and present histories.