Tracey Emin - the Memory of Your Touch

Book excerpt: The title of the exhibition, The Memory of your Touch, alludes to a line in D.H. Lawrence?s novel Lady Chatterley?s Lover (1928). When asked if she?misses the touch? of her deceased husband, Mrs Bolton exclaims:?That?s it my Lady! the touch of him! ... if there?s a heaven above, he?ll be there, and will lie up against me so I can sleep.? The sentiment behind these words echoes the artist?s own awareness of the transient memories associated with a vanished physical closeness. An erotically charged photograph (1997-2016)? with the same title as the exhibition? showing the artist lying face-down on a hotel bed, alone, encapsulates what Emin has referred to as?the loss of love and sex, and about how it felt to have that passion?trying to remember, remember that desire and remember what it felt like to be entwined with someone. A lot of my work has become more abstract, more vague, and that?s because the memory is blurry.? Exhibition: Xavier Hufkens Gallery, Brussels, Belgium (08.09.-21.10.2017).