Ever forthright, Emin tells The Art Newspaper that the events of the past few weeks have left her scared. “I spend a lot of time alone. I’ve lived alone for 18 years, so I’m used to solitude,” she says. “But these times are scary… dark… and they are going to get really bad. I already know people who are very ill, and hear of many who are in intense care and it’s only just the beginning.”
Having closed her studio two weeks ago, Emin whose father is Turkish and born in Margate says she has barely left her home in three weeks. “People are working from home. I’ve been making drawings of my house,” she says.
One of the things that has alarmed her most is the people who are underestimating Covid-19. “It’s a killer and no one has any idea which direction it’s coming from,” she says. Emin recounts calling an ambulance for a neighbour with suspected appendicitis last week. “It took an hour and a half for the ambulance to come. They told me that was fast. The call operator told me she was doing a 14 hour shift, they couldn’t keep up with the calls,” she says.
To date, three of the artist’s institutional shows have been postponed. I Lay Here For You, which was due to open at Jupiter Artland to coincide with the Edinburgh Festival (30 July-30 August), has been moved back to May 2021, while an exhibition due to open this year at Villa Théo in Saint-Clair in the south of France has been postponed to July 2021.
An exhibition pairing Emin with Edvard Munch, slated to open at Oslo’s new Munch Museum this spring but already delayed till the autumn due to building works, will now open in March 2021. The show was due to travel to the Royal Academy of Arts in London this November, which Emin hopes will still go ahead on the original date.
