Emin hurt by 'sniggering' at loss of her work

Artist Tracey Emin today spoke of her hurt at the public “sniggering” over the loss of major works in a warehouse fire.

Three of her works were destroyed in the blaze in London last week along with pieces by other major modern artists including Damien Hirst, Chris Ofili and Jake and Dinos Chapman.

About 100 “irreplaceable” works belonging to collector Charles Saatchi were destroyed. And Emin said she was outraged by the public reaction.

Speaking today Emin said: “What has really upset me isn’t the loss of the work, it is the reaction by the British public. ‘Good riddance to bad art’, the general public sniggering on an audience like Any Questions.”

Interviewed on BBC1’s Breakfast with Frost the artist said she had received calls from galleries and collectors across Europe stunned by the reaction in Britain.

“The country that I live in, that I take actually nothing from, the majority of the British public have no regard or no respect for what me and my peers do to the point where they actually laugh at a disaster like a fire,” she said.

“I think that is outrageous, especially when everything that is going on in the world, things are bad enough, we really don’t need to laugh at the culture in our own country. It really is terrible.”

Emin’s tent entitled Everyone I Ever Slept With 1963-1995, was among the work lost. Saatchi is thought to have paid £40,000 (€59,000) for the controversial artwork with 102 names in it.

Just days before the blaze Emin had removed 30 pieces of her own work from the storage to look at it.

She said the public would have been “in pieces” if a theatre had been destroyed. But because it was modern art the reaction was completely different.

“I am not saying they have to understand it. What I am saying is don’t laugh at it when it all burns down in a fire. That is just not fair and it is not funny. It is not polite and it is bad manners. I would never laugh at a disaster like that.”