Art Funded by you

Travelling Chess Set

Tracey Emin, 2008

Emin's chess set combines needlework, small-scale sculpture and her trademark nervous, scratchy drawings. Emin employs materials and strategies similar to those in her other work, particularly the appliquéd blankets and monoprint drawings, but uses the game of chess to express the heated intimacies of the courtship ritual. Her work uses art as a raw form of confession, in which she lays bare her hopes, humiliations, failures and successes with equal measures of humour and pathos. The Whitworth holds collections of fine art and historic and contemporary textiles. The set is highly 'crafted' and raises interesting questions for the gallery about the relative status of art and craft and about the use of textile and craft practice as a strategy in the making of art.

More information

Title of artwork, date

Travelling Chess Set, 2008

Date supported

2009

Medium and material

Bronze; fabric; silver brooch; wood & glass display case

Dimensions

58.8 x 91.5 x 52 cm

Grant

9375

Total cost

25000

Content note: This object record is part of our archive and has not been updated since it was first published. It may contain inaccurate information or outdated language. Please get in touch if you think this record should be amended.

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