From 5 April through 9 June, 2003, Tracey Emin’s video CV Cunt Vernacular was to be seen in De Hallen Haarlem . This video was purchased by the Museum in 2002.

While the video camera explores her living and working space, recording every element, even the smallest and most intimate, Emin tells the poignant story of her life.

Tracey Emin (London, 1963) and her kindred spirits, among them Damien Hirst, Sarah Lucas and The Chapman Brothers, form a new crop of English artists who might well be called the ‘fuck-it’ generation. They rebel against established art, and in particular good taste and the typically British equivocation and hypocrisy about sex takes a lambasting. Their work is direct, relevant and personal, straight from life, without embellishment or frills.

Tracey Emin has made her own life, the story of her personal life, into the subject of her art. The content of her work is herself. ‘My life is more interesting than the art that I make. That is why art most bow to my life.’ Emin has experienced just about all the miseries that a woman can go through: abused since she was eight, raped when she was thirteen, two abortions, a miscarriage, alcoholism, depressions and a suicide attempt. In the video work CV Cunt Vernacular (1997) she gives a heart-rending account of her moving life.