Friday, December 4, 2009
Art Forged Letters Get Tracey Emin in Trouble
Posted by Deirdre Hering on Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 3:10 PM
Opening with “Seasonal Good Wishes from Tracey Emin,” the letters make the false (and frankly, kind of funny) claim that Emin plans to build a swimming pool in Tenter Ground, the warehouse she bought for £4 million ($6,586,000) in 2008. A prank like this couldn’t have come at a worse time for Emin; her plans to use the building as an artisan space have already caused plenty of controversy. Emin’s application to renovate the warehouse was rejected by the Tower Hamlets planning department after reviewing a petition protesting the project. Much to her neighbor’s disappointment, though, a new application was accepted this past August.
The letters end with this comically cloying sign-off: “I might be a famous Turner Prize artist with a national collection of modern British art at the Tate, but you know, at heart, I’m still just your neighbour, Tracey.” And though Emin’s spokeswoman describes the incident as “shocking,” her neighbors were not particularly disturbed. Neighbor and false-letter-recipient Steffen Huck told The Times of London: “It was clearly not from her. There were no spelling mistakes.”
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