But both she and it now have a new lease of life with the exhibition reopening next week. The robots can go places and do things that human hands can’t.”Įmin thought her acclaimed exhibition at the Royal Academy with Edvard Munch, which opened for just nine days before lockdown, might be her farewell show. And I had robots! The robots were pretty nifty. And then the surgeon I had was fantastic. I just felt so unwell, just thought really this is not right. The other thing was: Covid was happening and most people weren’t going to the doctors or hospital, weren’t having checkups. Number two, getting a good diagnosis and prognosis really fast. Why does she think she made it? “Fucking luck, number one. Emin has spoken about her illness and gradual recovery with an honesty that has shown people who may have thought of her just as a loudmouth celebrity artist exactly how sensitive and courageous a soul she is. But it has cost her dearly: as well as losing her uterus, ovaries, lymph nodes, part of her colon, her urethra and part of her vagina, she says: “I’ve got no bladder.” So for the rest of her life, she has to use a urostomy bag.Ĭourageous soul … Tracey Emin at the Royal Academy last November for the opening of her joint show with Edvard Munch. It worked: she announced recently, on Newsnight, that she’s had the all-clear. Her disability is the result of a massive operation last year to save her life when she found she had squamous cell bladder cancer. But now I want to do things and I can’t.” Previously it was all right because I was on morphine.

The more well I get, the more annoying it is. I have a urostomy bag, so I have a major disability.

I’m determined to go for a walk later because I hardly ever go out. “Now I’ve got a terrible pain in my legs, it’s unbearable. On the phone, she sounded weak, but today she is indeed smiling, getting excited as she speaks – the Tracey who I have been fortunate enough to get to know. She has been spending a lot of time in bed, just resting. “But it’s not always like this.” We’ve been delaying this conversation until she finally felt well enough. ‘I ’m smiling and talking to you,” says Tracey Emin, sitting at her kitchen table.

Guitar this war of mine