Colin Gleadell details the news that Tracey Emin’s seminal and celebrated sculpture, My Bed, will be auctioned next month in London. It turns out that Emin’s reputation has gone global recently and the combination of greater recognition for the artist and a work of historical importance should incite a feeding frenzy especially when the work carries a very low £800,000 to 1.2m estimate range:
“Since her museum exhibitions in Buenos Aires and Miami 18 months ago, I’ve noticed significant bidding on her work from South America and Asia that wasn’t there before,” says Francis Outred of Christie’s. My Bed has strong associations with Asia, as it was first exhibited in Japan and made the news when two Chinese artists staged a pillow fight on it as a political act during the Turner Prize. Both of Emin’s dealers, White Cube in London and Lehmann Maupin, now also have galleries in Hong Kong.
For Emin, the sale feels “like the end of an era. Saatchi’s had this Nineties thing in his house like a time capsule. Now it’s historical.”
For sale: Tracey Emin’s famous unmade bed (Telegraph)
